Mr. John Twomey:

I will begin with the final question regarding speed vans and their locations. The GoSafe vans are deployed solely in areas where road fatalities have occurred. These locations are based on an analysis of five years of fatal and serious accident data. A review has been conducted and some of the locations have been changed. This process is ongoing and because of increased compliance, improvements in road safety and a reduction in fatalities and serious injuries in certain areas, locations have changed. These particular areas were responsible for approximately 30% of all of our fatalities, but as a consequence of the introduction of the GoSafe vans, additional enforcement hours and the additional capacity this provided to An Garda Síochána, this percentage has now reduced to 16%. Therefore, there has been a considerable decrease in the number of road fatalities and serious injuries in these areas.

This is an ongoing process and we continue to monitor the zones to ensure that the original basis for deciding on the locations is valid. We will take on board the observations made by Deputy O'Donovan in regard to the road he mentioned and perhaps we will come back to the committee on that issue. I assure the committee that the GoSafe vans and deployment of speed detection equipment is decided upon on the basis of road fatalities and serious injuries and on the analysis of five years of data and there has been a considerable reduction in fatalities and serious injuries in these areas.

In regard to the speed limits, a new group has been set up to review limits around the country. This work is ongoing and areas such as the one mentioned by the Deputy will be considered as part of that review.

On the issue of the summonses, this is a challenging and complex issue. The matter is ongoing and the Garda Commissioner has spoken to this and other committees on the issue. A working group is examining the issue and it has introduced a number of recommendations for both the medium and longer term to try to address the issue. We deal with in excess of 300,000 summonses every year and the issue of serving these is a challenge that is being considered in detail. There has been an increase in the number of summonses served over the past 12 months, which was a target set out by us. The issue is ongoing and we monitor it closely and are addressing it. We continue to work to improve our figures in that regard.