The Road Safety Authority (RSA) is prepared to quadruple the number of driving tests carried out by a private company to ensure that all second provisional licence holders can do a test by next June.
Currently 126 State-employed testers are carrying out 4,000 tests a week, including 800 which they do while on overtime in the evenings and at weekends, under a deal agreed between the authority and trade union Impact.
Swiss company SGS won two State contracts to carry out nearly 150,000 tests by September 2008, but its role is now to be sharply increased.
Last night, RSA chief executive Noel Brett said SGS's 2,000 tests a week could be doubled within "the next 12 weeks", and doubled again thereafter if necessary.
Together, he said, the RSA and SGS could now carry out 6,000 tests weekly, but this figure could be increased to 12,000 if necessary to clear queues.
The authority and Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey have offered guarantees that all 122,000 second provisional licence holders will be able to get a test before the end of June.
SGS was initially contracted to do 46,000 tests. It subsequently won a second contract to offer 100,000 more by next September, but there was a clause in the contract that allows it to be given extra tests in tranches of 10,000.
Mr Brett insisted that he had enough money from the Department of Transport to pay for the extra tests, although he would have to seek more if the RSA had to do 12,000 a week indefinitely.
More than 122,000 drivers, some of whom are second provisional holders and some of whom are not, are already in the queue for a test, including 15,000 people who applied online since the controversy broke last week.
However, Impact spokesman Tom Hoare warned that the RSA had "no idea" how many people were now in the queue because the Ballinasloe driving test centre has been "inundated" with paper applications.
Some 165,005 driving tests were conducted last year. One in five of those who had applied did not turn up for their appointment.
Mr Brett acknowledged that the computer system cannot stop people from making multiple applications and cannot identify those who do this.
Mr Brett said he believed that the numbers of people failing to turn up would drop dramatically. "A driving test is now something that people want," he said.
Defending the Minister for Transport and the board of the authority, Mr Brett said he had been the one at fault for failing to predict the reaction to the changes in licence rules.
"The board of the RSA did not set the dates. The department and the Minister did that - but only after they had talked to me," Mr Brett said.
"This is not something that the Minister came to me with. I was the one who advised him. With hindsight, I would have given a longer run-in," he told The Irish Timeslast night.
