The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has confirmed to The Southern Star that shortly there will be one full-time driving tester for the centre in Skibbereen, with the possibility of a second.
For the past number of months, Skibbereen did not have a dedicated tester and the centre has instead been serviced with staff from other driving test centres, exacerbating the issue of delays.
New instructors are being trained at the moment, and one of those currently doing that training is destined for Skibbereen.
There has been a great focus on the delays with driving tests nationally in the last number of months, with readers contacting The Southern Star to voice their anger over the delays.
While the online estimator tool predicts that a driver would be waiting about six months for a test, members of the public have reported waiting far in excess of this.
Data from the RSA shows that the pass rate at the Skibbereen test centre is 43.3%, the third lowest in the country.
It is beaten only by Charlestown, Dublin, with a 39.5% pass rate, and Mullhuddart Carlton Hotel centre, also in Dublin, with a pass rate of 38.2, the lowest in the country.
A decade ago, the pass rate in Skibbereen was significantly higher at 54.49, and in 2008 (the earliest year that data is published for), it was 55.4%.
Meanwhile, the Irish Road Hauliers Association (IRHA) has criticised the fact that close to 850,000 are driving on a provisional licence in Ireland, with over 94,137 of those in Cork.
The organisation’s president Ger Hyland described the figures as ‘a scandal’, saying that an inadequate and backlogged testing regime is forcing young learner drivers out on our roads without a full license.
The IRHA said they were concerned for the safety of their drivers who are coming across inexperienced drivers on a daily basis on Irish roads.
They also maintain that the numbers of people failing their driving test should be ‘ringing alarm bells’ for the Department of Transport.
In the Cork county division, there was a 21% year-on-year increase in the number of unaccompanied drivers caught by Gardaí between 2023 and 2024.
Mr Hyland has called for a radical overhaul of the driving test system so that it includes testing for motorway driving skills, night-time driving, and the safe overtaking on secondary roads.
Branding the current Irish testing system as a ‘laughing stock’, the IRHA president compared it to a pilot being taught how to fly a plane without ever leaving the runway.
‘The current 40-minute driving test allows for an approximate driving time of between 15 and 20 minutes, often in heavy urban slow moving traffic. This would be a great test of one’s ability to sit in a traffic jam, but if we are honestly testing driving skills and driver preparedness, the test as it stands is a shambolic exercise in raising funds for the RSA. The increases in the numbers of learner drivers caught driving unaccompanied is only the ones gardaí are catching and we feel this is just the tip of the iceberg”
