The Road Safety Authority is to get an additional eighty testers to help clear the backlog of those waiting for their driving test, the Public Accounts Committee has heard.
Ken Spratt, Secretary General at the Department of Transport, said that the decision was made on Tuesday in light of delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said that the additional personnel, together with the development of "additional centres", will allow the RSA to move "pretty quickly through the backlog".
"That should make a fairly good, decent dent in the testing backlog," Mr Spratt said.
Half of the new testers are being trained at the moment, and will be conducting tests this summer, he told committee members.
The second group of forty testers will be drawn from a panel soon.
The RSA has also been cleared to retain 36 testers it has on its books, he said.
He was responding to Labour TD Sean Sherlock, who said that 100,000 people are awaiting a driver theory test.
Mr Sherlock asked why only 4,000 people are being tested online under a new interim measure.
He also expressed concern that in order to register for the online test, people must have Windows 8 or higher, with Google Chrome and a minimum internet speed of 5 MB, and "cannot use a phone, tablet or Mac."
Mr Spratt said he was "disappointed" to see that online theory tests are being "confined to certain technologies and certain operating systems".
He will engage with the RSA on this, and is "willing to consider" providing the RSA with help if that is what is needed to resolve this.
