THE HEAD OF driving testing at the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has roundly rejected a Fianna Fáil TD’s suggestion that learner drivers should be allowed on the road unaccompanied.

Brendan Walsh, chief operations officer at the RSA, said people with learner permits must not be allowed on the road on their own because, by definition, they are still learning to drive.

Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe told the Dáil last week that learner drivers should be allowed to drive without being accompanied in the car by a licensed driver, as is currently the law.

Speaking during a debate on the long waiting time for driving tests, Crowe said young people were being “criminalised” by the “punitive” and “unrealistic” requirement to have an accompanying, qualified driver in the car with them at all times.

Walsh, of the RSA, told The Journal that rules such as the requirement for learner drivers to be accompanied have contributed to the long-term reduction in road deaths in Ireland.

In 2007, the year before legislation kicked in requiring all learner drivers to be accompanied by a licensed driver, 338 people died on Irish roads – almost twice the number of people who lost their lives on the roads in 2024. Before 2007, holders of a second learner permit – then called provisional licences – could drive unaccompanied.

Walsh said: “I would not endorse learner drivers driving on the road without the support of a fully licensed driver sitting beside them.”

“That’s the law. You have to have someone accompanying you because if you are on a learner permit, you are still learning to drive.”

RSA chief operations officer Brendan Walsh RSA RSA

Crowe told the Dáil that in rural areas of his Clare constituency, young people had no choice but to drive in the absence of public transport – with many commuting long distances to college given the shortage and unaffordability of student accommodation.  

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“There is no public transport network and this criterion is unacceptable,” Crowe said.

Crowe suggested there might be a “smarter” or more “sensible way” to deal with learner drivers, such as insurance companies requiring them not to exceed a certain speed.

Yesterday, the RSA published its plan to deal with the driving test backlog and reduce waiting times for tests to the target of 10 weeks by September.