Minister Canney instructs the Road Safety Authority to publish and deliver on their plan to address Driver Testing delays

Minister for International and Road Transport, Logistics, Rails and Ports, Sean Canney, has instructed the Road Safety Authority (RSA) to publish and deliver on their plan to address Driver Testing delays, following a meeting with RSA Chief Executive Sam Waide on 14 May. This followed a meeting on 1 May, at which Minister Canney instructed the RSA to bring forward new measures to address the unacceptable waits for tests faced by those learning to drive.

The driver testing service is the statutory responsibility of the RSA and is run independently from the Department of Transport by the RSA. To support the RSA in increasing testing capacity and improving service delivery, in September 2024 the department sanctioned an additional 70 permanent positions for driver testers. The first tranche of new testers has been deployed into service. Additional testers will enter the system over the coming months.

The average national wait for a driving test is currently 27 weeks. The RSA has committed to Minister Canney that this will be reduced to 22 weeks by end May, to 18 weeks at end June and that the service will be returned to the target average wait of 10 weeks by early September at the latest.

The RSA was instructed by Minister Canney at today’s meeting to publish their plan next week, showing their projections of average wait time and numbers of tests to be carried out on a fortnightly basis to end 2025. The Minister further instructed the RSA to report publicly and to him fortnightly on delivery of their plan, with any deviations from projected timelines to be immediately addressed with the Department of Transport.

While the proposed timeline from the RSA is an improvement, Minister Canney has instructed the RSA to make contingency preparations to bring in additional resources to provide for further testing capacity, should it become clear the RSA timelines will not be met. These plans need to be ready to be activated quickly should the need arise. The plans are to be developed in collaboration with the existing driver testers and their representative bodies.

Under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has statutory responsibility for the National Driver Testing Service. The Minister of Transport’s only direct role in driver testing is to consider requests from the RSA for recruitment of driver tests and to sanction increases in headcount where supported by evidence-based business cases. All testers are employed directly by the RSA and their assignment to driving test centres are determined by the RSA.

Since September 2024, the RSA has sanction to employ 200 driver testers on permanent contracts. Currently, 153 testers are employed and following a competitive recruitment campaign in late 2024, this is expected to rise to 200 by November 2025. These additional testers are being assigned to test centres nationwide as the candidates complete their training. As a condition of sanction, the RSA was required to put a plan in place to restore the 10-week waiting time target as soon as possible.

At end April 2025, the national average waiting time for an invitation to book a driver test stood at 27 weeks. There are variations in the average across test centres nationwide.

The agreed target for the driver testing service is an average wait period nationwide of 10 weeks or less. The RSA publish detailed monthly information on the driver testing service on the CSO website, including the breakdown of waiting times and distribution of testing capacity by test centre. This information is available at the following link: https://data.cso.ie/product/RSADTS.