Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Does Mr. Walsh think it is a power the RSA would maybe like to have? If somebody breaks a red light or is speeding, the RSA can do nothing about it. The authority can ask An Garda Síochána to do something about it and can ask the local authorities to install red light cameras but it cannot install them. That is where I see the disconnect in that we want the RSA to make roads better but the RSA cannot install the cameras on the N7 or any other road for that matter. Whether it is the RSA does it or somebody else, that would seem to require a joined-up process. Every one of us came here today one way or another. As it happens I cycled in today and I saw people breaking red lights at three different junctions. It happens all the time; it is persistent. I take two or three similar routes and motorists break red lights at particular junctions all of the time. It happens at Miltown Cross, The Goat and Leeson Street Bridge over and over again. People are breaking red lights all day long. It is a culture where people think if I break this, I can break that.

Sometimes they do not get lucky or the person they interact with does not get lucky. Last week I happened to be driving on the motorway, which is not something I do all that often. A guy came up behind me, flew out, around and back in front of me and was swerving from the third lane back to the first lane. That is where technology works, the camera or black-box-type scenario, the tracking mechanism that identifies drivers speeding and driving dangerously. That is how we catch them. I am frustrated by everybody trying to do the right thing in their own little silo, but it is not happening as quickly as we want it to. Maybe that is an unfair comment and I am on the authority's side on this, but there is not enough focus from everybody to make sure that people learn not to drive dangerously at these particular junctions where we see consistent infractions. We sat on the N7 where the compliance rate went from 67% to 97%, based on average speed. We all know the six-minute stretch where drivers watch their speed even more than they watch it anywhere else.