Mr. Conor Faughnan:

I agree with Ms Murdock. This is a complicated area.

Many people who voice their opinion to us wish for technology or knowledge that simply does not yet exist. Many people ask us if a drug test could just be done after which one is banned after being caught. It is a nice theory but we do not have any tools which will physically do this in an intelligent way and I do not think we will have them immediately. In recent years the mouth swab tests used for cannabis in places such as France and Australia have been problematic. The new generation of screening kits is much better than those in use at present. The technology appears to be improving, almost like electronic technology. In two years time we may have better tools to hand which can do this more accurately. Everybody - I do not know of any exceptions - believes that impaired driving through legal and illegal drugs is real, and it appears anecdotally to be worsening. We know it must be contributing to road deaths and we simply must do something about it. This is an attempt to do something about it which is reasonably intelligent and measured. It will initially be supported overwhelmingly by the motoring public. I agree there are concerns. If we get this wrong, bits of it might fall on challenge. A concern I have expressed is microtraces proving one used an illicit substance actually triggering a road traffic conviction even though one's road safety was never in question. We must be very careful about such matters. There is much we must get right in the regulation. I suggest it would probably be a far worse sin for the Legislature and the Government to look at this area and say it cannot draft anything because the area is very complicated and choose to do nothing. That would be more remiss.