Mr. John O'Brien:

It is an important point to make. The point Mr. McCarthy makes is that the GoSafe cameras are in what in some countries are called KSI zones, where KSI stands for killed or seriously injured, and they are anchored there to those zones, and to move a GoSafe camera from location A to location B is a major exercise - there is a whole one-two-three checklist for things that have to be done. The problem, which is not of their making, is that there is a lack of flexibility in moving them.

The committee will be familiar with the significant problem of boy racers in some parts of the country, which I shall not name on this occasion, and this means multiple deaths involving young men. Essentially, if I was making the Garda operational decision, I would say, for the next two months or two weekends, whatever, we need to put extra resources in a particular area. It would be very difficult to put in GoSafe cameras, as I understand it, from the regime of control that they are operated under. They do not have that flexibility, and flexibility is essential in any operational scenario. One can make a plan, and they say the first casualty of any war is the plan. The same applies to an operation: one needs flexibility. An inflexible system where the majority of these detection vans are in inflexible locations - particularly, as I understand it, in urban areas - simply is not an adequate operational response to the problem.