Mr. John Twomey:

Regarding drug driving, we have an impairment testing facility available to us and that is being used at present. I do not have exact figures with me today. The new legislation proposes the introduction of screening devices, which will be testing equipment that we can use at the road side. That will come in with the new legislation and it certainly will streamline the process and enable more effective and efficient enforcement of the drug driving legislation. After the implementation of that legislation we will be able to give more information to the committee.

In the context of schools, we conduct a variety of schools programmes where we talk about public safety in general, and road safety is a key part of that. We accept and agree with the Deputy's suggestion that the earlier one gets to these younger people, the greater is the opportunity to influence their behaviour on the roads. Children are great at influencing parents and telling adults and parents what to do regarding seat belts. Certainly, we see that as a real opportunity and we do a huge amount of work on it. We also do much work with the Road Safety Authority in terms of ensuring there is a consistent message from all of the agencies involved. There is a close working relationship. There is plenty of communication and media being used to ensure we are talking at every opportunity about improving personal responsibility on the roads. Enforcement is one element of the approach to road safety but personal responsibility and ensuring people are aware of the risks and dangers in that regard are equally important. We put a great deal of time and effort into that, both through our schools programme directly and also working in partnership and collaboration with the Road Safety Authority.

The Deputy asked about resources. Our resources are currently approximately 738 but that is being reviewed in light of the ongoing recruitment. Every opportunity will be used to examine where we can improve. On the deployment and use of our resources. we conduct much detailed temporal analysis which gives us very good information in terms of the times of the day, the days of the week and the profile of the drivers and we use targeted interventions specifically focused on that information. That has contributed to the reduction in road fatalities this year and the fact that over the past few years, since the introduction of the Garda National Traffic Bureau in 2005, there has been a considerable reduction in the number of road fatalities. We continue to work in partnership and to attempt to avail of every opportunity possible, from both an enforcement and an educational perspective, and we will continue to do that.