There is an urgent need to reduce delays for driving tests in the Cavan test centre. As of today, there is a 15-week delay in getting a test date there, according to the average estimated time on the RSA website. An invitation to attend a test is currently being offered for the week commencing 14 October. I understand that it is generally four weeks later before the test is undertaken, as tests are generally scheduled one month in advance. An applicant who applies in Cavan today will wait until the end of November for a test. This is not acceptable. I again appeal for additional personnel to be allocated to this centre.

I welcome the increased number of testers the Minister, Deputy Chambers, put in place but we need more in order to reduce waiting times and give learner drivers a chance of literally getting on the road. Delays in driving tests put a limit on a person's work, education and routine daily activities. The Department must put in place the necessary resources to deal with the issue, which impacts severely on people, particularly young people in rural areas such as Cavan.

The RSA currently has sanction to employ up to 205 driver testers, which is more than double the 100 sanctioned posts in June 2022. To further assist in reducing waiting times, in October last year a change was made to the booking system to allow any unused test slots to be made available for candidates to take up at short notice. If a driving test is cancelled at short notice, the RSA makes the appointment available to the general public on the MyRoadSafety portal. Following this change, test slot utilisation rates have risen from around 95% to 98%, delivering further testing capacity to the system. The RSA is committed to restoring average waiting times to the target 10-week level in the summer.

At the end of May, the estimated waiting time to be invited to sit a driving test in Cavan was 16 weeks, compared with the national average of 14.9 weeks. Significant progress has been made since last August, when the estimated waiting time was 34 weeks in Cavan and 30.4 weeks nationally. Progress in reducing waiting times has been achieved in large part through the sanctioning of 75 additional driver tester posts on a temporary basis.