Learner drivers are waiting longer to sit their driving test – with some facing waits of 33 weeks or about seven-and-a-half months. More than 68,000 are awaiting a test, according to the latest Road Safety Authority (RSA) data.
Learners are waiting an average of 21 weeks, a figure which has risen consistently since last April when the average was 15 weeks, according to Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Despite an assurance that the average waiting time would be cut from 15 weeks to 10 weeks by the middle of last year, the wait time is now at its longest since December 2023 when it stood at 23 weeks.
Last April Jack Chambers, then minister of state with responsibility for road safety, told the Dáil that a waiting time of 10 weeks, the service level agreement target, would, according to the RSA, be “restored by the middle of the year”.
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A year before, the Department of Transport had issued a two-year sanction to hire up to 75 additional driver testers to address the backlog, saying at the time that the RSA expected a return to the 10-week target by last April.
When broken down by test centre, the shortest estimated wait time for an invitation to book a test for learners who join the waiting list now is 13 weeks in Killarney, Co Kerry. However, the majority of test centres estimate a wait of at least 19 weeks.
Learner drivers in Navan, Co Meath, face the longest wait at 33 weeks, suggesting a test slot may not be available until September.
This is followed by Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, (32 weeks) and the Carnmore test centre in Galway, which estimates a wait of 28 weeks before learners will be invited to book a test.
The latest RSA data shows that 68,177 eligible learner drivers were awaiting a test at the end of December, down slightly on the total of 68,314 a year earlier. As of last month, 15,984 learner drivers had a driving test scheduled.
A further 54,180 applications had been paused as a result of the applicant failing to respond to an invitation to book a test within 10 days, while a further 30,781 applicants had been found to be ineligible to sit the test.
Although the permission for the RSA to hire 75 additional testers in March 2023 brought the overall total of sanctioned posts to 205, a spokesman for the department said the “actual driver testing numbers” peaked at 176 in December 2023 and declined throughout last year.
This drop was attributed to retirements, contracts reaching their conclusion and testers leaving for other offers of employment. Last December, 151 testers were in active employment.
This “shortfall in expected capacity” comes at a time of ongoing growing demand for the service, the department said, with a record number of applications received last year (274,051) and 253,850 tests delivered. A further 8,863 learner drivers failed to attend their test in the same period.
[ Driving test pass rates at some centres almost double that at others around Ireland ]
A spokesman for the RSA said the high demand for driving tests was a continuing trend, with the number of applications received last year 10 per cent higher than in 2023, largely due to population increase.
A sanction has since been issued for 70 additional posts on a permanent basis, which will bring the overall number of permanent testers to 200, though the recruitment campaign is likely to take “a number of months”, he said.
Asked if it believed the hiring of the 70 permanent testers would it to achieve the 10-week target, a spokesman for the RSA said this recruitment would result in a “significant improvement” in waiting times.
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