WAITING lists for driving tests have started to lengthen again fuelled by bad weather and industrial action, the Road Safety Authority has admitted.

The average time to get an appointment has now risen above 10 weeks at a quarter of all the testing centres in the country, figures have shown.

That includes many of the busiest centres in the country, including Tallaght in Dublin and Cork city, where waiting lists have shown a marked increase in the past six months, and now stand at 13 weeks.

Nineteen out of the 49 centres in the country now have a waiting list of 10 weeks or more, with the problem most pronounced in Munster and Leinster.

The longest queue of all is at Skibbereen, Co Cork, where motorists routinely have to wait 14 weeks before getting a test.

The Road Safety Authority has stated it wants to see "testing on demand",
where­­by learner drivers can have their test within weeks of applying.

The RSA said poor weather conditions and industrial action were the cause of recent increases and insisted a decision to end testing conducted by a private operator would not see increased lists.

A spokesman said: "We are just talking about 12 centres out of 49 that are marginally over the 10-week waiting time. It is also important to note that SGS [private contractors] currently have driving test files and will be testing up to 10 April.

"The main reason for the increase in waiting times at these centres is largely down to the recent snow/icy conditions and the CPSU action, which disrupted services.

"We are currently redeploying testers from areas with low numbers of candidates to these areas and we are confident that they will be brought back into line as the numbers concerned are small.

"The RSA schedules driving tests six to eight weeks in advance. When we lose a week's worth of testing, like we did with the recent bad weather, we have to reschedule those tests for a later date. However, they do wash out of the system quickly."

The average wait at a test centre is now 8.9 weeks, which is up from 8.1 weeks six months ago.

However, those figures mask the true scale of the increase, as it has been at the busiest testing centres where waiting lists have grown most.

Irrespective of that, the times involved have shown a vast improvement on recent years, when motorists could be left waiting six months for a test.

Learner drivers in certain parts of the country, particularly in Connacht and Ulster, are enjoying extremely short waiting periods, with the average in those areas little more than six weeks.

Twelve different centres can provide a test within six weeks of application: Ennis, Loughrea, Roscommon,
Ballina, Buncrana, Carrick-on-Shannon, Cavan, Letterkenny, Monaghan, Sligo and Gorey.