The Irish Road Haulage Association has accused the Road Safety Authority (RSA) of massaging the driver testing figures by moving testers from articulated truck, bus, and truck testing to car testing.

The hauliers said that this has been done in order to reduce wait times for car driving tests, while waiting times for commercial driving tests "increase exponentially".

The Irish Road Haulage Association said this is "a crisis in the making for the commercial driving industry".

The Irish Road Haulage Association has outlined its claims in separate letters to both Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien and Minister of State with responsibility for road safety Sean Canney.

The association has called on the ministers to remove the driver testing system from the RSA, "before any more damage to the Irish economy is done".

According to figures provided by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) to the hauliers, between June 2024 and June 2025 there was a 27% increase in the number of driving test applicants waiting at month end for a test.

Between April 2025 and June 2025, the RSA had significantly improved their performance for car and van testing, recording a 10% drop in the number of driving test applicants waiting at month end for a test.

However, the number of applicants waiting for an articulated truck license test between April and June 2025 rose by 39.6%.

The number of applicants waiting at month end for a category C truck licence driving test rose by 42% between April and June 2025, going from 907 people waiting at the end of April 2025, to 1,289 people waiting for a truck driving test at the end of June 2025.

The CSO figures show a 12.6% decrease in driving test applications for category C truck licences between April and June 2025.

Meanwhile, there was a drop of 8.5% for category CE articulated truck tests between April and June 2025.

The CSO figures also show that the driving test applicants scheduled for cars/light vans between April and June 2025 increased by 49.2% from 15,287 tests to 22,810 scheduled tests.

In the same period, the number of scheduled tests for category C trucks fell by 61.8% from 356 to 136 scheduled tests, and those for articulated trucks (CE licence) fell by 69% from 242 tests scheduled in April 2025 to just 75 tests scheduled in June 2025.

The hauliers claim this period coincides with a period where Minister Séan Canney met with the RSA in the Department of Transport and gave the authority a deadline to return in two weeks with "sustainable proposals to improve driving test wait times".

Ger Hyland, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, said the RSA moved their testing resources from commercial testing into car testing, rather than expand their testing capabilities overall.

He claimed the RSA is playing as "a dangerous game" which is "effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul at a time when the haulage sector is desperately short on drivers".

Hyland added that the actions of the RSA are "stifling economic growth in rural Ireland by delaying the qualification of suitably qualified professional drivers who are desperately needed to support small and medium sized businesses across the country".

“The RSA know that the car testing figures are what will garner more media and political focus. That is why they moved their resources there, at the expense of the commercial driving sector.

"They just moved the driving test crisis from cars to commercial vehicles, leading to severe backlogs in the testing system for bus, HGV, and truck drivers.

"The RSA have learned nothing in the past six months and have demonstrated that their organisation is clearly not fit for purpose," he said.

In response, the RSA said that it remains "fully committed to delivering fair and timely access to driving tests across all licence categories — including commercial vehicles".

"This resulted in a reduction of testing staff to support the higher licence categories during the training period in June and July.

"This short-term adjustment is already delivering improvements in overall capacity.

"Once the new testers are fully deployed from early September, waiting times for all licence categories — including commercial — will stabilise and meet service-level agreements," the authority said.

At the end of June, 2,738 people were awaiting a truck or bus driving test. The RSA said these individuals will be issued with an invitation in the coming weeks.

"There will be no reduction in testing for the higher categories in 2025 versus 2024, we expect to exceed our 2024 testing volumes.

"We note in recent months, the IRHA expressed concern about long waiting times for car driving tests, warning of the 'safety risks' that delays were contributing to potentially more unaccompanied learner drivers sharing the road with professional HGV drivers. Addressing that issue has been a national priority.

"The RSA’s focus is on providing a high-capacity, sustainable and safety-led testing system that serves all road users — commercial and private — and supports Ireland’s broader economic and workforce needs," the authority added.