asked the Minister for Local Government why there is a four months delay between application for a driving test and receiving the test.

The delay is occasioned by vacancies on the staff of driver testers. The Civil Service Commission are at present conducting a competition for the appointment of further officers.

When is it expected there will be an improvement on this?

It is hoped that, as a result of this competition, it will be possible to increase the staff sufficiently to deal with it.

When does the Minister anticipate they will have this increased staff?

As soon as the results of this competition are available, it is hoped.

Is there any date fixed for interviews? The preliminary part of this competition is over.

I do not know exactly when we shall have the results of the competition, but it should not be very long now. I hope it will be successful in supplying the required number of driver testers. There is no shortage of applications anyway.