WAITING times are currently standing at upwards of nine months for a driving test in County Limerick, according Rural Ireland Independent TD Richard O’Donoghue, who highlighted the issue in the Dáil.
The County Limerick politician described the promised 75 new testers stated to come on board as “wholly inadequate”.
“The people of Limerick are suffering because of these delays in testing,” Deputy O’Donoghue claimed.
“They cannot get jobs, they cannot get to college, and they cannot get to medical appointments, even if they depend on them, because of the delay in the licensing service.
“If you live in a place where you need a driving licence and the Government prevents you from getting a licence by not having the proper infrastructure in place, the Government is guilty of stopping equal job opportunity.”
In response, Minister of State at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers stated: “At the end of September, the average wait for a candidate to be invited to sit a driving test was 28.5 weeks. This figure is far above the service level agreement target of 10 weeks. That is not an acceptable wait time for many young people.”
“It is expected that as we deploy additional testers we are recruiting, we will be back to that service level agreement by mid-2024.
