Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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123. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the reason a person (details supplied) has been waiting so long for a driving test; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27007/24]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has statutory responsibility for the National Driver Testing Service. This includes all application and scheduling matters. Neither I nor my department have information on individual cases. As such, I have referred the question to the RSA for direct reply. I would ask the Deputy to contact my office if a response has not been received within ten days.

At the end of May, the estimated national average wait time to be invited to sit a driving test was 15.6 weeks. While this is still above the service level agreement target of 10 weeks, significant progress has been made since last August, when the estimated wait time was 30.4 weeks nationally.

Progress in reducing wait times has been achieved primarily through the sanctioning of 75 additional driver tester posts by my Department last March, with the first additional testers entering active service last September. The RSA currently has sanction to employ up to 205 driver testers in total, which is more than double the 100 sanctioned posts in June 2022.

To further assist with reducing waiting times, in October last year a change was made to the booking system to allow any unused test slots to be made available for candidates to take up at short notice. If a driving test is cancelled at short notice, the RSA now make this appointment available to the general public on the MyRoadSafety portal.

I recognise the challenges that excessive waiting times are imposing on people throughout the country and I welcome the Road Safety Authority's commitment to restoring average wait times to the target SLA level of 10 weeks. My officials are working closely with the Authority to monitor progress towards this goal.