I propose to take Questions Nos. 396 and 397 together.
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. As such, the detailed information requested by the Deputy is held by the Authority. Given the RSA's responsibility in this matter, I have referred the Deputy's questions to the RSA for direct response. Please contact my office if a reply is not received within ten days.
Pending this more detailed responses, the Deputy may wish to note that the statistics for waiting times for individual test centres and the number of those waiting to sit a test are made available on the CSO website on a monthly basis and can be accessed via the following link: https://data.cso.ie/product/rsadts.
Reducing driver test waiting times has been one of my key priorities since taking office. To that end, in May 2025, I directed the RSA to produce and publish a service recovery plan to meet the 10-week average national waiting time target by September 2025, which the RSA achieved. The latest information available to me from the RSA indicates that the average waiting time for a driving test in Co Dublin was approximately 15 weeks as at 7 February. While, this marks a significant improvement on the 31.1-week average wait time in April 2025 it remains above the target 10 week average national wait time and I expect the RSA to continue to work to bring the wait time in Dublin in line with the 10 week target as soon as possible. I am informed by the RSA that it is continuing to focus on addressing centres with higher demand and wait times.
In September 2024, my Department sanctioned an additional 70 permanent driver testing posts, bringing the number of full-time tester positions to 200, representing a doubling of permanent posts since June 2022. At the end of January, 194 testers were in place, which marks a significant increase on the 151 available at the beginning of 2025. The RSA is working to reach its full complement of 200 testers, and I am informed that work is underway to have 200 testers in place as soon as possible. I understand that to manage demand effectively at national level, testers, although formally assigned to specific centres, are routinely deployed to other locations as required.
In addition, the RSA has indicated that overtime and bank holiday testing will continue in 2026, and this will allow the RSA to mitigate the impact of shorter days and inclement weather on testing during winter months.
New centres in Sandyford and Drogheda are due to be operational shortly. The new centre in Sandyford can be expected to relieve some of the pressure on wait times in Dun Laoghaire and Tallaght, where wait times are currently above the 10-week period and where demand is typically very high. Testers that will be operating from Drogheda and Sandyford are currently being accommodated in other driving test centres and so there is no loss to capacity by virtue of those centres not yet being open.
Additionally, the driver testing booking system now makes available cancelled test slots for candidates to take up at short notice. I would encourage leaner drivers awaiting a test to monitor this channel, which may provide an opportunity to book an earlier testing date.
