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Driving Tests.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 9 March 2005

Wednesday, 9 March 2005

Questions (176)

Róisín Shortall

Question:

217 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Transport the number of current provisional driving licences; and if he will provide a breakdown of these into the various categories of licence. [8126/05]

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Written answers

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, who hold and administer the national driver file, has advised me that the number of provisional licence holders was 380,347 as at 31 December 2004. That Department has also provided a breakdown of this figure into the various categories as in the table.

Analysis of Provisional Licence — Numbers broken down by Category and Provisional Licence No.

Provisional Licence No.

Licence Category

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th and more

Total

A

59,703

14,336

1,588

527

178

76,332

A1

56,976

22,152

2,709

856

190

82,883

B

152,404

90,155

41,056

30,520

16,441

330,576

C

6,238

1,714

221

57

17

8,247

C1

3,474

748

67

19

3

4,311

D

1,795

655

59

19

2

2,530

D1

1,453

505

43

12

2

2,015

EB

1,200

314

34

7

0

1,555

EC

2,091

454

47

12

2

2,606

EC1

1,041

122

12

0

0

1,175

ED

29

10

1

0

0

40

ED1

43

6

0

0

0

49

M

80,498

13,237

312

5

1

94,053

W

72,560

21,852

5,027

2,567

868

102,874

Total

439,505

166,260

51,176

34,601

17,704

709,246

The figures represent counts of provisional licence categories and not provisional licences, namely, number of licensed drivers holding provisional licences. Totals by category do not equal the total number of licences, because a provisional licence may have more than one category and each category can be of a different classification, namely, first, second, third and so forth. For example, a driver has a provisional licence with two categories, A and B. Category A is a first provisional and B is a second; this constitutes one provisional licence, but two provisional categories.

Also, where categories on a multi-category licence all have the same provisional count, each category is counted separately, for example, a current provisional licence with four first provisional categories A, B, M, W will be counted four times. The figures in the table will include this licence four times, one first A, one first B, one first M and one first W. For category B, a car without a trailer, there are 152,404 licences with first provisionals, 90,155 with second provisionals, 41,056 with third provisionals and so forth. Some of these licences may also contain other categories, for example, category M, moped, category W, work vehicle-tractor and so forth, which are counted separately.

The total number of current provisional licences on 31 December 2004 is 380,347.

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