EU Driving licence

lmiccl

Hi,
Does anyone know if the new licences are all linked to a European database?
I live in Portugal and when my Irish licence came up for renewal i stupidly decided to do the right thing and swap for a Portuguese one. I was told it would take three months, it took over a year and many days of red tape, (average waiting time in motor tax office is 2-3 hours). Anyway i got it and its wrong, name wrong, missing bike truck. It will take another year to resolve, so in short i have had enough, I'm going home in a few weeks for a holiday and will try to get my Irish one renewed, I know what is required, pps, address etc which should not be an issue. My only issue is if this central european database is in place and my irish driving number was already registered in this database and linked to my new Portuguese one.
The Portuguese license seems to be the same format as the Irish one with regard to being credit card size with the European symbol.

Thanks

SpaceTime

I don't think they are.

The issue is more that they've cancelled your Irish one.

You should file a complaint with the European Commission.

Those delays are unacceptable.

Stheno

No they are not linked but you are not allowed have multiple licences

SpaceTime

You also can't apply for an Irish licence unless you're a resident here.

They'll probably need your Portuguese licence to issue an Irish one.

If your Irish licence was surrendered in Portugal and or has expired it's likely to cause a lot of issues.

I googled there and it seems there's a massive problem with the Portuguese licensing agency taking months and months to issue licences even to Portuguese people.

A lot of people are reporting being issued with temporary licences by local offices that are only valid in Portugal and this happening over and over for months until their official licence eventually arrives.

If you reapply for an Irish licence, the processing time is usually about a week. We had a delay of a few weeks when the NDLS was being setup but, it's running smoothly now.

The issue is if you're transferring a licence from Portugal the NDLS will have to apply to the Portuguese authorities and that might be every bit as slow as applying locally.

lmiccl

thanks for the quick responses, yes i'm aware that i should be resident and i should also not have multiple licences
and it was never my intention to do so but look at my situation effectively i can only drive in Portugal with temporary permits which have to be renewed every three months. I was told by the IMTT (Portugals NDLS) department here that an international license will cover me for all my needs abroad and for my troubles they charged me 60 euros for one, only to discover when i arrived at an airport that international license is not accepted by the rental car company, no fun with kids at 10 o clock at night.
Any license change here takes one year, even a simple as changing address and they put a much shorter renewal date on the licence, more money for them. So i think i'll take my chances, at this stage i would be happy locked up in Mountjoy then have to face this process again.

SpaceTime

I'm not meaning to be anti Portuguese here but how the heck does a simple thing like that take a year?

That's just absolutely ridiculous!

We'd be moaning over here if it took a few weeks.

An international licence is generally meaningless. Most car rental places in the EU will expect you to have a standard EU licence.

Seriously consider making a complaint via Brussels. This kind of thing is contrary to EU freedom of movement rights.

The local bureaucrats there can't just assume that some weird temporary licence will be accepted anywhere outside Portugal and their assurances are utterly meaningless.