376 Mr. Belton asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government when he will appoint extra driving testers to cope with the waiting lists. [23770/01]

The average waiting time for a test countrywide is 13 weeks. Most of the large Dublin test centres are at or below the ten week target waiting time contained in my Department's customer service action plan. There are a number of test centres where longer waiting times are being experienced. To deal with this 11 additional contract driver testers have been recruited. These personnel commenced training on 8 October 2001.