Waiting time for driving tests longer than ever

Waiting times for driving tests have reached record lengths, despite measures announced by the Minister for Transport aimed at…

Waiting times for driving tests have reached record lengths, despite measures announced by the Minister for Transport aimed at reducing them.

Mr Brennan's proposals to bring back retired staff and give bonuses to existing staff to work additional hours have not attracted sufficient numbers to tackle the growing waiting lists.

Eight retired testers have agreed to come back to work and will join the force of 113 on Monday. However, only six of them will be working full-time.

Only three of the existing testers have opted to take up the bonus scheme.

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Driving-test applicants now have to wait up to a year to be examined. A total of 128,412 provisional licence-holders are on the waiting list, an increase of more than 50,000 from the end of last year.

Waiting times increased following Mr Brennan's announcement last December that he intended to end the practice which allowed a driver to fail a test and continue driving unaccompanied on a provisional licence.

The average wait at the start of December was less than 11 weeks, with some centres examining applicants in seven to eight weeks. Now, however, applicants can expect to wait an average of almost 10 months, or 39 weeks, for a test.

Naas has the longest delay in the State, with a waiting list of 51 weeks, while none of the 49 centres in the State can currently provide a test in less than seven months.

In February, Impact, the union representing the testers, entered into negotiations with the Department of Transport in an effort to increase the number of tests.

By March a deal had been worked out which would offer bonuses for each additional test carried out before November, after which time it would be too dark in the evenings to fit in extra tests.

However, delays in securing the extra funding from the Department of Finance meant that the scheme was not available until June 23rd.

"At the end of May we'd heard nothing back from Transport, and our members needed to book their holidays, and in the end we had to tell them to go ahead," an Impact spokeswoman, said Ms Louise O'Donnell, a spokewoman for Impact.

"By that stage there were very few good daylight months left and for most people the extra money they would get just wasn't worth it."

The Department of Transport had hoped there would be an 80 per cent take-up of the scheme resulting in 40,000 more tests.

Out of 113 testers only three signed up to the deal, and it is estimated the maximum number of extra tests they could each complete by November would be 300.

There are no proposals to offer the scheme next year.

A spokesman for Mr Brennan said he was disappointed that the scheme had not worked. However, he said, the Minister was working on a "structured package" which was "85 per cent worked out on paper".

"This needs more than just a knee-jerk reaction. It is an extremely complex area.

"The Minister wants to change the driving culture rather than just meet the demands for more tests," the spokesman said.

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly is Dublin Editor of The Irish Times