Driving test backlog: Where to beat the queues
Neil Briscoe
The crisis in Irish driving tests rumbles on, with an average wait for a test now stretching out to 27 weeks on average, according to figures from the Department for Transport.
In some cases, the wait has been known to go on for much longer, as long as 10 months.
It’s leaving Irish learner drivers footing the bill for higher insurance costs as they wait to the test - or at least get the chance to do so. Some 68,000 people are currently waiting to take their test.
The delays have now become so bad that the relevant Minister, Sean Canney, told the Road Safety Authority (RSA) - an agency currently being shut down and broken into two new agencies - to “publish their plan, showing their projections of average wait time and numbers of tests to be carried out on a fortnightly basis to end 2025".
"The Minister further instructed the RSA to report publicly and to him fortnightly on delivery of their plan, with any deviations from projected timelines to be immediately addressed with the Department of Transport,” according to a spokesperson.
That plan has now been published, and includes ideas such as expanding the number of driving test centres from 41 to 60, adding yet more examiners, and expanding the working day of driving tests, starting from 7am and extending to 7.25pm — something that presumably limits the effectiveness of the plan to summer months, and indeed there RSA has said that the plan is supposed to be in place until September.
Speaking of the RSA plan, Mr Canney said: "The provision of a timely and efficient driver testing service is a key priority for me. The experience of learner drivers seeking a driver test over the last number of years has been unacceptable, and the service being offered needs to be greatly improved as soon as possible.
"I welcome the RSA plan to bring wait times down to 10 weeks by no later than early September, and I expect the RSA to fully deliver on this commitment.
"There can be no deviation from this timeline and I have instructed the RSA to ensure contingency plans and remedial measures are in place and ready to deploy to ensure that no slippage occurs.”
Quite how the Government expects the RSA, which has failed so spectacularly in its other tasks that it soon won’t exist in its current form, to fix this issue is another matter.
The Government has so far been keen to blame individual learner drivers for the problem, stating that some drivers book tests but fail to show up, thereby slowing the flow of tests taken.
The issue of resources remains somewhat unaddressed — of 70 extra driving tests examiners promised before Christmas, the first tranche are only now starting to carry out tests.
In the meantime, there is the potential for gaming the system somewhat, in an effort to get an earlier test. There’s no onus on you to take your test in your local testing centre, and although you’d have to be confident that you can do OK on unfamiliar roads, you’re perfectly entitled to book a test at any of the 41 centres around the country.
Helpfully, Irish insurance aggregator Quote Devil has come up with a list of the centres with the combination of shortest wait time and highest average ing rates, so that you can maximise your chances of getting a test early, and then ing it first time.
According to Quote Devil’s research, the testing centre with the shortest average wait time of those where more than 50 per cent of applicants first time out, with the wait at 13.3 weeks, half the national average, is Tuam in Co. Galway.
That centre also manages to schedule 92 per cent of its applications within one month, so your chances of getting an early test are quite good.
Next best is Ennis, Co Clare on 13.5 weeks, followed by Thurles, Co Tipperary (14.3 weeks); Tipperary town (14.3 weeks); Loughrea, Co Galway (14.5 weeks); Shannon, Co Clare (15.8 weeks); Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim (17.2 weeks); Cavan town (17.6 weeks); and Monaghan town (18.8 weeks).
What about the worst, though? According to Quote Devil’s figures, the centre with the longest average wait for a test, of those with a ing average less than 50 per cent, is Dun Laoghaire/Deansgrange, with an average wait of 30.6 weeks, three weeks longer than the national average. That’s a full seven months, and that’s just the average.
Next worst is Naas, Co Kildare on 25 weeks, then Tallaght, Co Dublin on 24.4 weeks.
The centre with the lowest ing rate? That’ll be Charlestown, Co Dublin, where only 36.2 per cent of applicants on the first go. Mind you, Charlestown only makes you wait 16 weeks on average for a test, so at least you can get booked again quickly.
