Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for honouring the commitment he made to us the last time he was here that he would come back regularly to update us on progress in implementing his own report and the recommendations made in the Oireachtas joint committee's report. The Chairman and Senator Rose Conway-Walsh touched on quite a number of the points I might have made. I have questions about how the the driver database is going to work. We heard during our hearings that the automatic number plate recognition, ANPR, system was not been very reliable. One in four was a positive hit. Will the Minister of State update us on where we stand with the ANPR system? There are many drivers who do not own cars and there are cars which are driven by multiple drivers. We hear of people who insure their children and allow them to drive, but technically they are not insured because they are learner drivers and should not be driving unaccompanied. How are we going to make sure the person driving a car is insured? I know that driving licences are part of the equation and that some motorists have open driver insurance policies and so on. We heard of staggering cases - I think in one instance the driver may have been from outside the jurisdiction - in which people had 400 or 500 convictions and multiple disqualifications. These are the people who cause accidents and have clearly breached road safety rules and they seem to be getting away with it entirely, with no realistic sanctions. They may be put off the road and may not be able to obtain insurance, but they are still driving. How are we going tackle this behaviour? From where does the uninsured driver statistic come and how is it calculated? Obviously, the people concerned are not insured and there is no record of their being uninsured. Is it a guesstimate or is it based on some methodology?