A range of new measures designed to reduce the number of people waiting to take their driving test was announced yesterday.
The Road Safety Authority (RSA) said it hoped the measures would lower waiting times to an average of under 10 weeks by the end of March 2008.
The national average waiting time has dropped from 35 weeks to 25 weeks in the past year, and the RSA believes a recent recruitment drive, as well as the increased number of tests being carried out by a private firm, will see this trend continue.
RSA chief executive Noel Brett said a total of 135,847 people were currently awaiting a driving test and that cutting waiting times was "a key building block in reducing deaths and serious injury on Irish roads".
The latest RSA figures reveal that the testing centre at Waterford has the longest average waiting time of 38 weeks, while the shortest waiting times are in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, and Cavan, where applicants have to wait just 12 weeks to be tested. The RSA said yesterday that a second contract outsourced to the private Swiss multinational, the SGS Group, will begin in July and will see new test centres opened in areas that have the highest waiting times.
Under the terms of the first contract, SGS Ireland are carrying out 46,500 driver tests on behalf of the RSA. These tests will be completed in September and focus primarily on Dublin, Kildare, Louth and Meath. However, the second contract, under which SGS will complete at least 100,000 tests over a 15 month period, will see the focus extended nationwide. It includes provisions for the number of tests to be increased in blocks of 10,000 at the end of the contract.
The completion of the RSA's recruitment process will see it directly employ 126 testers and 11 driver testing supervisors.
Six retired testers have also been contracted, while 69 of RSA testers have signed up to a bonus scheme that will see them conduct tests on weekends, evenings and early mornings. The RSA believes this will be particularly effective over the summer as longer daylight hours will allow them to complete more tests.
The new measures also aim to tackle the problem of applicants not turning up for their test. Brian Farrell, a spokesman for the RSA, said around 20 per cent of people do not show up on the day and that the new measures would ensure that putting off the test indefinitely was not an option.
Candidates for tests run by both the RSA and SGS will only be able to rearrange their appointment on two occasions before they are forced to reapply for the test.