Ms Moyagh Murdock:

At any moment in time there are approximately 22,000 disqualifications in the system that people will have received on an annual basis. The national driver licensing file issues 22,000 disqualifications but we see multiples of that and, as the Deputy said, the number could be as high as 8,000. We see a proportion of disqualified drivers involved in fatal crashes. In our research, which we carried out with An Garda Síochána and where we went through almost 1,000 fatal crashes over a five-year period, we established that at least 7% of those were caused by motorists who were driving while disqualified. That equates to quite a number of people per annum. Unfortunately, it is a fact that disqualified drivers are driving. They are risky and dangerous drivers and they go on to have crashes and to be involved in subsequent crashes after they have been disqualified. At least 7% of fatal crashes involved disqualified drivers.