Minister for Transport Martin Cullen repeated his intention to eliminate the backlog of driving tests by the middle of next year.
"That means having a waiting list of no more than 50,000 that can be reduced in a 10- or 12-week period," he said.
Mr Cullen said that seven civil servants from the Department of Agriculture had commenced working as driver-testers last month and would conduct tests this year and next. This gave an annual additional capacity of about 10,000 tests.
Six further driver-testers on two-year contracts were due to commence training, with five more being trained thereafter, providing additional capacity of about 15,000 in a full year.
A bonus scheme for driver-testers had been operating since February, with the testers having the potential to deliver up to 40,000 tests over the course of the year, said Mr Cullen.
The final element, he added, was to outsource a block of tests to an agency.
Negotiations on this aspect had reached a position last week where Kieran Mulvey, chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, recommended proposals enabling this to be implemented.
Labour spokeswoman Róisín Shortall said Ireland was probably the only State in Europe which allowed learners to drive unaccompanied.
"There is an underlying demand for approximately 177,000 tests per year without taking account of the backlog. By my reckoning, by the end of 2007, the waiting time for the driving test will be only reduced to 26 to 28 weeks," she said.
Mr Cullen said the system was out of date and incapable of handling the demands of modern living as much as the modern requirements for good testing.
"Many tests are lost each year due to people not turning up."
