A high demand for full licenses and a low number of testers means nearly 83,000 people are currently waiting to sit their full driving test.
Over 45,000 of those are waiting for a test appointment and only 17,000 have a scheduled test date.
The RSA (Road Safety Authority) aims to achieve a national average of a ten-week waiting time. The longest waiting time for learner drivers has been 25 weeks which equates to over 6 months. The worst impacted areas include Killarney, Cavan, and Churchtown who had some of the longest waiting periods for individuals in the country:
- Gorey (26 weeks)
- Killarney (26 weeks)
- Cavan (25 weeks)
- Castlebar (25 weeks)
- Churchtown (25 weeks)
- Clifden (24 weeks)
- Skibbereen (25 weeks)
According to The Irish Mirror, some test centers are experiencing a 70% failure rate during this month alone. Senator Boyhan is urging Minister Shane Ross to urgently hire more testers as thousands of students return to college and work and need full licenses to commute long distances, particularly with exorbitant rental prices forcing many students to live far from their colleges.
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Only 98 driving testers are available across the country. Ten testers have retired this year so far with only four having been hired since June. The massive disparity between the numbers of testers and applicants equate to their being roughly 1,000 applicants per tester nationwide - which, I think we can all agree, is utterly absurd.
The RSA is currently in the process of hiring "a significant number" of testers, though they haven't disclosed exactly how many this euphemism equates to.
