I propose to take Questions Nos. 589, 590, 656, 657, 659, 661, 667 to 669, inclusive, 671, 672, 684 and 700 together.
As Minister of State for International & Road Transport, Logistics, Rail & Ports, I wish to advise that my Department maintains the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) database, which is the State’s record of all Irish licensed drivers. The Department’s role is to manage the database, including of penalty points and disqualifications on driver records based on information on offences provided from the Courts Service and An Garda Síochána. A report published by the Department in December 2025 outlines the processes involved and provides detailed statistics for 2024. This report is available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-transport/publications/recording-of-penalty-points-and-disqualifications-on-driver-records/
A similar report will be published in early 2026, to provide the same statistics for 2025 once available.
When information is received by the Department on penalty points or disqualifications from the Courts Service or An Garda Síochána, if this contains the “Driver Number” (a unique number assigned to each licensed driver on their driving licence), this is automatically linked to the correct record on the NVDF. Where the information received does not contain the Driver Number, then attempts are made by the Department with the assistance of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) to match the penalty points or disqualification to the correct NVDF record.
As the published report shows, in the case of disqualifications notified to the Department in 2024, 82% have been successfully linked or matched to a driver record on the NVDF. This percentage will never be 100%, as the NVDF contains only the records of Irish licence holders. Disqualifications are also imposed on foreign licence holders, and on Irish resident individuals who do not hold a driving licence, and therefore who will not have a record on the NVDF. As the report further documents, the Department has undertaken a detailed review of records not matched for a sample period and found that the vast majority of these appear to be Irish non-licence holders (most of the remaining are accounted for by those holding foreign licences).
Notification letters to drivers who have incurred penalty points are a feature of the penalty point system. Such notifications are required to be issued under the Road Traffic Act 2002 (as amended). Where a penalty point offence is successfully endorsed on a driver’s record on the NVDF, my Department issues a letter to the driver concerned. Notification letters are sent where a penalty point offence has been added, where it has expired, or where it has been removed on appeal. Such notifications will include the offence details and the number of associated points that were applied. Where such an offence results in the driver exceeding a disqualification threshold, a notification is also issued. A further notification is issued when the disqualification has expired.
In the case of District Court convictions, the Courts Service notifies the offender if they are disqualified and this notification also advises of the requirement to surrender their Driving Licence to the RSA. When a disqualification is imposed by An Garda Síochána or for penalty point disqualifications (where multiple sets of points exceed the relevant threshold), the offender is notified by the Department of the changes to their NVDF record, which includes an instruction to surrender the Driving Licence to the RSA. Where an offence has not been matched to a driver record and a ‘shell record’ has instead been created on the NVDF, the notification will issue to the name and address supplied with the information received by my Department.
A mismatch, which is where the wrong driver record on the NVDF is updated in error, can occur very rarely for a variety of reasons. It may be the offender provided incorrect information, the information from the Courts Service or An Garda Síochána might be inaccurate, or an error may occur in the Department’s or the RSA’s matching.
If notified of an error, the NVDF record is updated immediately by the Department, and a notification letter is sent. Who issues such notifications will depend on the nature of the error; it may, for example, be sent by An Garda Síochána where there was a technical or administrative issue with the record itself; or it may be issued by my Department where there was an error in endorsing the offence on the correct driver record.
To the Department’s knowledge, mismatch cases are extremely rare. This is in context of over 10,000 disqualifications and 166,000 sets of penalty points in 2024. The Department are not aware of any mismatched case in 2024, which is the only year at present for which full data are available for analysis.
Legislative changes that came into effect on 31 March 2025 mean that drivers attempting to renew or incept motor insurance policies from that date are required to provide their driver number to the insurer. The insurer then validates this against the NVDF. Any driver numbers associated with a disqualified driver will be flagged and the insurer will direct the driver to request a driver statement from the RSA. Thus far my Department has not been informed of any driver who has had a disqualification applied in error. We have only been notified of one case of a driver who had penalty points incorrectly applied to their licence.
As noted above, my Department will be updating the published report to cover 2025 in the coming months when full data are available and this analysis will include any available information on mismatches in that year.
My Department will be undertaking further work to examine ways to improve matching performance. This will focus on two areas. The first will be to work with the Courts Services to see if further information can be included on the file notifying the Department of penalty point convictions. This may offer an opportunity to improve the automated matching process. The second area will be to examine whether it would be cost effective to extend the manual process run by the RSA contractor.
As the role of maintaining the NVDF including the recording of penalty points and disqualifications is the ultimate responsibility of my Department, I have no plans to meet the RSA to discuss this matter. My officials meet with the RSA to discuss technical issues on a regular basis. While errors may occur in a very small number of cases, these are quickly corrected where identified, and I have full confidence in the overall integrity of the system.
