The legislation in this area provides that a person who held an Irish driving licence which has expired - whether or not they were living outside the jurisdiction - is entitled to apply for a new licence in the normal way within ten years of the expiry of their old licence, and does not need to go through retesting. The purpose of driver licensing rules is to ensure that people who are allowed to drive on our roads meet certain standards. Irish driver licensing law operates within the framework of European law. As all EU Member States share the same standards for driver licensing, people coming to live in Ireland with EU Member State licences may exchange them for the equivalent Irish licence without undergoing a test.
In the case of non-EU states, we have agreements on mutual recognition of driving licences where studies have shown that our licence regime and that obtaining in the other jurisdiction are comparable. We do not have such arrangements with the United States of America or with Australia. This is in part because neither of those jurisdictions has a single national driver licensing system: in the USA driver licensing is operated at State level, and in Australia at provincial level. While I sympathise with people who return to Ireland after a long absence and find that they are treated as learner drivers, I must balance this against the need to ensure that drivers on our roads are qualified to do so. I would point out however that people in this position are not required to wait the usual six months as a learner before taking the driving test.
