RSA says it will not 'sacrifice quality' in training of new driving testers to cut waiting times (2025)

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has said it will not “sacrifice quality” as it fast-tracks dozens of new driving testers in a bid to drastically cut waiting times amid “unprecedented demand”.

On Thursday, it unveiled its plan to cut times from an average of 27 weeks to 10 weeks by September, which includes new testing centres, more testers and scheduling tests for weekday evenings, Saturdays and bank holidays.

It comes after sustained criticism of the persistently long waiting times, with the Government admitting the situation was unacceptable as 100,000 people wait to sit their test.

The RSA’s chief operating officer Brendan Walsh told the Irish Examiner its plans include extra testers at its centres in Wilton, Mallow, and Skibbereen in Cork, but admitted reducing the waiting times to 10 weeks in such a short period would be “tight”.

“The demand we’ve seen since covid is unprecedented,” Mr Walsh said. “We brought in temporary testers [at the time]. We got approval for 75 but we were only able to get 41. This was a time of full employment asking people to give up work for a temporary job.”

He said the number of temporary testers was nowhere near enough to meet demand, which rose to more than a quarter of a million tests completed last year. In 2021, fewer than 160,000 tests were completed.

“The response we had was inadequate,” he said. “We couldn’t meet demand. But now we’ve pulled together and looked at all areas to see where we can optimise efficiencies across the organisation.”

The organisation now has approval from the Government to increase the number of permanent testers from 130 to 200. But, between retirements and other departures, it has meant Mr Walsh has had to recruit 91 new testers to the RSA.

Currently, there are just over 150 testers working across the country, with another 50 starting their training. In Cork, he said there had been an increase in the number of testers from eight to 13, with additional workers coming on stream in other centres.

In terms of new test centres, this will include facilities in Dublin and Kildare, while the RSA will “continue to monitor the landscape”.

The issues around driving tests have come to the fore in the last few weeks in particular, and Mr Walsh said they “knew it would be bad” by the end of April as they needed to take some testers out of the service to train in the new ones.

He emphasised despite the need to get them out there working quickly, they ensure each tester is properly trained and given one-to-one training if required.

Mr Walsh said: “One thing is we can’t sacrifice quality, no matter how much pressure we get. We take an approach to stagger training. We’ve 20 in training at the moment, and then we’ll bring another 12 on.”

The Government has also directed the RSA to draw up contingency plans to prevent severe backlogs should demand spike again like it did after covid, and the RSA chief operations manager said he was confident his team could deliver this.

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“We have been extraordinarily busy for the last two years,” he added. “The team have been working at a ridiculous level and we have to be mindful of that. At the end of the day, they’re mid-level public servants and they’re now giving up their free time to support the organisation.”

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National average waiting time for driving test is 27 weeks

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RSA says it will not 'sacrifice quality' in training of new driving testers to cut waiting times (1)

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RSA says it will not 'sacrifice quality' in training of new driving testers to cut waiting times (2025)

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