Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has said he has received an "absolute assurance" from the Road Safety Authority (RSA) that all 122,000 provisional drivers who applied for a driving test before last October will have been offered a test by March.
Following a public outcry at that time, the Government decided to postpone the abolition of the "drive alone" rule for second provisional drivers until next June.
Mr Dempsey said the recent "spike" in applications had been expected when he originally made the announcement last October that learner drivers would no longer be allowed to drive unaccompanied.
"We expect that there may be one other spike in this, but we are putting in place the capacity," he told The Irish Times.
However, the authority's figures show that the current waiting list for a driving test stands at 178,000, despite some 30,000 tests having been undertaken since last October.
A spokesman for the authority said the average waiting time for a test is now 17 weeks, meaning that everyone on this larger list will be offered a test before the June deadline.
Second provisional licence holders who notify the authority of their particular situation would continue to be prioritised when it comes to obtaining a test date before the June deadline.
The RSA spokesman said that 6,000 tests are currently being conducted per week, a figure that will increase to 10,000 a week by March and can be increased by 12,000 per week from that month, if required.
The aim is that, from the end of June, all applicants will be offered an average waiting time of 10 weeks for a driving test, he added.
There have been fears that, as individuals who are on provisional licences sit their tests, those who fail and who reapply in the hope of passing before the June deadline, may place significant pressure on the waiting list.
However, Mr Dempsey said that the Government had "never promised everybody that they would pass the test, but that they'd get to sit the test".
He also stressed that the 10-week commitment "applies to everybody that is on the list at that particular time".
"The capacity is going in, [the private testing company] SGS are ramping up their testers, they're training a number over the next number of weeks, and I have to say our own testers within the department have responded magnificently to the challenge as well," he said. "So I'm confident from what I'm told, yes, that we'll reach those particular targets."