Ireland-Provisional Licence debacle

Once more Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey finds himself in the eye of a storm. He announced yesterday that all provisional drivers, including those on their second provisional, must be accompanied by a driver who has held a full licence for a minimum of two years.The penalties for breaching this are a fine of up to €1,000 and possible disqualification from driving. The same penalties will apply to provisional drivers who do not display an L-plate.
In principle this is a good idea. However it is impractical and unjust in the short term. The average waiting time for a driving test is eighteen weeks. Unfortunately waiting times of five months or more are not unknown.

Fine Gael Road Safety Spokesman Shane McEntee TD has called on the Government to implement provisional driving licence reforms only when the driving test backlog has been removed, as Martin Cullen argued when he was Transport Minister. Deputy McEntee said the Government had had ten years to implement an overhaul of the driving licence regime but is now telling 400,000 provisional licence holders they have just four days to comply with the new regulations.

"Noel Dempsey's proposals to reform the provisional driving licence regime are unworkable and unreasonable because they give drivers no time to make alternative arrangements, let alone take a driving test..."
This statement from Shane McEntee encapsulates the problem quite nicely.

Today Mr Dempsey has further compounded the problem and added to the confusion. He said today that although the law would come into effect next Tuesday, gardaí would take a measured approach to enforcement "using discretion and common sense as opposed to automatic prosecution".
This is a debacle from which the Minister may not recover.