Hauliers have accused the Road Safety Authority (RSA) of moving driving testers from articulated truck, bus and truck testing to car testing in order to reduce wait times for car driving tests, causing waiting times for commercial driving tests to increase.
The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) has presented its claims in a letter to Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien and Minister of State at the Department of Transport Sean Canney.
The group said waiting lists for car drivers fell by 10 per cent between April and June but that there was a significant increase in the wait times for truck (42 per cent) and articulated truck (40 per cent) tests over the same period. It said there was also a backlog for bus drivers.
IRHA president Ger Hyland described the situation as “a crisis in the making” for hauliers, and said the RSA came under “intense political pressure” to move their testing resources from commercial testing into car testing, rather than expand their testing capabilities overall.
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The IRHA said the improvement in waiting times for car drivers and the increased backlog for commercial drivers coincided with a period during which Mr Canney met with RSA leadership and gave it a deadline to come up with proposals to improve driving test wait times.
The group has now called for the driver testing system to be removed from the remit of the RSA.
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“Young Irish drivers who need a license to drive a bus, truck or heavy goods vehicle (HGV) cannot get licenses because the RSA have all but stopped commercial testing to focus on car testing,” Mr Hyland said.
In response, the RSA said it “remains fully committed to delivering fair and timely access to driving tests across all licence categories — including commercial vehicles”.
“In May, we delivered record levels of Category C and D (truck and bus) tests in preparation for the release of our experienced staff from the service to support the training of our new recruits,” it said.
“This resulted in a reduction of testing staff to support the higher licence categories during the training period in June and July.
“This short-term adjustment is already delivering improvements in overall capacity. Once the new testers are fully deployed from early September, waiting times for all licence categories — including commercial — will stabilise and meet service-level agreements.”
The RSA said 2,738 people were awaiting a truck or bus driving test at the end of June. “These individuals will be issued with an invitation in the coming weeks,” it said.
“There will be no reduction in testing for the higher categories in 2025 versus 2024. We expect to exceed our 2024 testing volumes.”
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said 30 additional driver testers entered live testing in July and the RSA expects to reach its full complement of 200 driver testers by the end of August.
“With this addition of substantial new testing capacity, and all testers conducting tests rather than temporarily reassigned to deliver necessary training, rapid progress can be expected across all testing categories towards the service level agreement target in the coming weeks and months,” he added.
