Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 5 Apr 2001

Vol. 534 No. 2

Written Answers. - Driver Testing.

Trevor Sargent

Ceist:

91 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the steps he will take to provide a better resourced driving test system to reduce the number of high risk drivers who are driving alone on provisional licences; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10283/01]

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Molloy)

At 1 January 2001 it is estimated that some 345,000 provisional licences were current. This compares to an estimated 380,000 provisional licences current at 1 January 2000.

The Government strategy for road safety, 1998 – 2000, acknowledged the importance of driver training and testing to road safety, with the qualification that these could not be expected to yield road safety benefits on the scale of the measures directly targeted at speeding, alcohol and seat belt wearing which have been prioritised by the strategy. The strategy proposed, for the longer term, a significant reduction in the number of Irish drivers relying on a provisional licence.

In order to attain this longer-term goal, the short-term priority is to restore waiting periods for driving tests to acceptable levels. A record 165,000 applications were dealt with in 2000. Very significant additional resources have been allocated to the driver testing service, which now numbers 115 testers compared to 66 in 1998. Together with productivity agreements, Saturday and evening working, this has increased the testing capacity of the service by over 100,000 tests to about 210,000 car tests annually. Significant reductions in waiting times have occurred over the last few months and it is anticipated that the target of ten weeks longest waiting time will be achieved nationally by mid-2001 or shortly thereafter.