Wilton has lowest pass rate across Cork’s driving test centres at 44%

There were more than 24,000 driving tests conducted in Cork last year, with the average pass rate among Leeside testing centres standing at 57.23%.

According to figures provided by the CSO, there were 24,447 driving tests conducted across all four driving test centres in Cork during 2024, with the Wilton centre proving to be by far the busiest.

There were 15,736 tests conducted in Wilton, followed by 4,660 conducted in Mallow, 2,179 in Skibbereen, and 1,872 in Ballincollig.

Among those centres, the one with the highest average pass rate — standing at 73.24% — is Ballincollig. However, the Ballincollig centre does not test for individual category B vehicles.

Following Ballincollig is the Mallow test centre, with an average pass rate of 57.88%; the Skibbereen test centre with 53.51%, and Wilton, with 44.32%.

This marks the Wilton centre as having the lowest average pass rate for drivers across the county.

Additionally, there were 844 no-shows across the four Cork centres, and 1,707 tests not conducted or abandoned.

Speaking to The Echo, a spokesperson for the Road Safety Authority (RSA) said that there is a widespread hiring campaign under way for testers, with Cork earmarked as a “key area” for positions to be filled.

Following a sanction from the Department of Transport in 2023, the RSA hired an additional 41 temporary driver testers, who were stationed across the country, to assist in bringing down waiting times for tests.

To date, according to the RSA, the majority of these additional testers are still conducting driving tests nationwide. However, they are expected to complete their rotation by the end of this month.

At the end of last year, the national average estimated wait time for an individual to be invited for a car test was 20.8 weeks.

This is compared to 22.5 weeks at the end of 2023.

“At the end of December, there were seven permanent and three temporary testers assigned to Cork,” the spokesperson said.

“While it would not be appropriate to advise of the future figures at this stage of the recruitment process, it is the case that Cork has been identified in the process [as] one of the first areas of focus for training of new recruits.

“Demand for driving tests remained high throughout 2024 — 10% higher than 2023 — indicating that this high demand is a continuing trend rather than a once-off.

“On that basis, a business case to increase the permanent cohort of driver testers was submitted to the Department of Transport in early June.

“The Department of Transport granted sanction at the start of September for additional permanent driver testers to be hired, to bring the number of national permanent driver testers up to 200.

“The recruitment campaign to hire these additional driver testers is under way [and] while a recruitment campaign of this size will tak