Driving-test applicants are waiting for more than a year

The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has admitted it will take at least a year for driving-test waiting times to be brought within "acceptable" levels after it emerged yesterday that test applicants are waiting for up to 54 weeks to be examined.

Despite promised measures to clear the huge backlog, waiting times for tests have risen in recent months, reaching record levels in most of the 48 test centres around the State.

Eight centres cannot provide tests to provisional drivers in less than a year, and a further 10 have waiting lists of 50 and 51 weeks.

The waiting list in Naas is 54 weeks, while Waterford and Tallaght are the next-worst places to apply for a test, both having waiting times of 53 weeks.

Speaking to The Irish Times last night, Mr Brennan insisted that unaccompanied provisional drivers would still be banned from the roads within months under new legislation.

"The legislation is being finalised, and very soon it will be compulsory to pass a test in order to drive on our roads," he said.

He said the rush to apply for driving tests showed people "know I mean business, and they've got the message that this fellow isn't joking". However, he admitted that some of the measures aimed at increasing the number of tests carried out had yielded disappointing results.

"There are now 140 officials carrying out tests, working Saturdays and Sundays to get extra tests in. But the take-up on the scheme to bring back retired testers had a disappointing response, and only eight people came back," he said.

A deal negotiated in March which would offer bonuses for each additional test carried out before November wasn't proceeded with, Mr Brennan said. The Department had hoped there would be an 80 per cent take-up of the scheme, resulting in 40,000 more tests.

"We did look to Northern Ireland for testers, but they had none spare. The UK didn't have any either."

Mr Brennan added that there was "not a lot of money" available to employ new testers.

There are some 120,000 provisional drivers on the test waiting list, up from 51,000 in 2001. The 140 testers working for the Department can currently cope with 3,000 tests each week. However, less than half of those examined pass.

Mr Brennan said it would take at least a year before the waiting time was down to an acceptable average of three months, and the current situation would not improve much for three to six months.