The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has rowed back on a planned permanent closure of the driving test centre in Raheny, north Dublin in September.
On Wednesday the authority confirmed tests will end at the centre, signalling a permanent closure.
However, on Thursday an RSA spokesman said the centre will reopen in “six months to two years” but could not give a precise timeline.
Waiting times in Raheny had risen to 29 week. The centre will finish operating on Friday, September 18th.
READ MORE
All applications and test appointments after that will transfer to the Killester centre about a kilometre away, with tests starting on Monday, September 21st.
In July RSA chief operating officer Brendan Walsh told the Oireachtas Transport Committee that building works near the Raheny centre “have basically crippled our ability to deliver tests”.
He described it as “an absolute anomaly. It is something we could not legislate for.”
The authority is in the process of “extending our footprint” at the Killester driving centre, he said.
Walsh told TDs and Senators “we have significantly reduced the number of testers” in Raheny but made no reference to closing the centre.
The RSA spokesman said just two driver testers were in place in Raheny for some time. Sanction to close the centre was received on July 29th when facilities were secured for Killester.
The building works are a €27 million development for the elderly.
Minister of State for Transport Seán Canney explained that construction works and road works in the vicinity of the centre had disrupted routes around the centre so the RSA had been asked to find an alternative location. The RSA was looking at opening another test centre in Dublin, he said. At present they had 198 testers in place, the highest number ever, which would mean more testing slots.
Fianna Fáil TD John Connolly told RTÉ Radio’s Today show that the decision to close the Raheny test centre seemed “strange” when there were so many people waiting and there were lengthy delays.
“There are long delays, they vary throughout the country. In Galway in particular it can be a nine to ten week delay in the city, but if you go to some of the provincial towns, I know Loughrea has a region of 16-week delay,” he added.
Raheny has had the longest waiting time of any of the State’s 57 test centres for the past number of months.
On May 28th, learners had to wait 17 weeks before being “invited to apply” for a test there and face a wait of up to five further weeks before getting an appointment.
It rose to 23 weeks on June 5th, and 25 the following week. The waiting time increased a further four weeks by the end of July to 29 weeks, almost three times the target national average waiting time of 10 weeks.
Any learner driver applying there in recent days would expect to wait until February 2027 before being invited to pick an appointment time in the following three to five weeks.
Susan Gray, founder of road safety campaign group Parc, which compiles driving-test waiting times from RSA website data, warned the “Killester centre will now just be swamped with extra applications and waiting times will rise”.
She added: “The waiting time in Raheny has massively grown from 17 weeks in May to 29 in July.
“It begs the question how many if any, tests were actually carried out there for the past number of months.”
[ Longest driving test waiting time in Ireland is revealedOpens in new window ]
Gray said what happened with Raheny showed the RSA “has very poor management of the system”.
The latest waiting-time figures also show Tallaght, in southwest Dublin, has the second-longest wait at 21 weeks, up from 12 in June.
Clifden, Co Galway, is in joint third place for the longest waiting period of 15 weeks along with Portlaoise, Co Laois. Waiting times in Killester are currently 12 weeks, down from 14 at the end of July.
It is understood 2,855 test applicants will transfer to Killester which has a waiting list of almost 1,400 learners.
The waiting time at Drogheda Southgate, Co Louth, which opened on May 5th, dropped last week from 19 weeks at the end of July to 14.
The shortest waiting time is eight weeks in Birr, Co Offaly while nine centres have a nine-week wait. They include Skibbereen, Co Cork, Donegal town, Naas, Co Kildare, Roscommon, Finglas, Dublin and Carnmore, Galway.
[ About 600 learners fail to show for driving tests each month – RSAOpens in new window ]
The 10-week national average waiting time target was reached once in September, the deadline set for the RSA by Minister of State for Transport Seán Canney. It currently stands at 12.1 weeks.
New regulations come into force on November 1st requiring any learner driver with two or more learner permits to sit a test before receiving a third permit. Currently once they apply for a test they can continue to use the permit without taking a test.
Gray warned the “floodgates are going to open” in less than three months, when the new regulations come into force.
“So they’d need to really, really tackle this problem because there are 31 centres out of 57 where there are people waiting more than 10 weeks.”
The RSA spokesman said, however, that “waiting times have improved significantly in a number of the busiest test centres”, including Dún Laoghaire where waiting times “reduced from 24 weeks in mid-2025 to 14 weeks at the end of July”.
Currently 201 driver testers are employed “with four additional testers commencing training in mid-August to support capacity and offset upcoming retirements”.
The service is “conducting approximately 6,000 driving tests per week, representing a significant increase on the same period last year”.
