Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the assistant commissioner and his team and commend them on the forthright manner in which they dealt with the questions. Everything is straightforward and that is appreciated. The GoSafe contract was awarded nearly five years ago and it was a very competitive tendering process.

The successful consortium was an international group with French and Australian involvement but the operation is centred in Listowel, County Kerry, where I come from and, therefore, I am familiar with it. The Listowel people who are involved have a long history of successful involvement in a number of businesses related to photo processing and they are regarded as highly competent and professional and men of probity. I was reassured by Superintendent O'Donohue's response to the television programme. I saw the programme and felt it was very much over the top and made a mountain out of a molehill.

Judge Durcan more or less condemned the GoSafe operation. Is the function of GoSafe staff to detect and report speeding offences and present themselves in court when a prosecution is made with the process of prosecuting remaining a matter entirely for the Garda ensuring total separation? The judge did not seem to appreciate that. I stand corrected if I am wrong but if it is true, the judge did not seem to know that and I am surprised. Has he been contacted by the Garda to point out the reality to him? I do not know if that is how everything operated at that level but perhaps there should be communication with him because he was in error.

I refer to another issue that has bothered me from some time. I drove home to Kerry on Good Friday last year and as I drove along the two-lane carriageway at Islandbridge while leaving Dublin, a major Garda operation was under way involving up to a dozen or more Garda vehicles and two dozen gardaí. They were pulling motorists in to breathalyse them. I found it to be a dangerous practice. I was lucky not to be in an accident because drivers were crossing lanes and so on. The operation was over the top. Is that normal practice? If so, should this be examined? I thank the assistant commissioner for his attendance.