Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the last months this committee has discussed the question of reducing the drink driving limit to zero. This has been controversial. Part of the job of the committee is to try to tease out information from all sides. Do we want the limit drilled down? The Road Safety Authority could not give the information to us because of data protection issues and we were quite disappointed at this. We all want to ensure that people are safer, but this was information that should, we felt, have been made available. We took legal opinion on this and were told that the RSA was within its rights. We are talking about legislation, however, that we as a committee and a committee Chair cannot get because of data protection.

Senator Munster rightly mentioned the Garda figures. Could it now be an issue that the Garda figures were also wrong? We are talking about legislation that we cannot get drilled down because of data protection. We are now dealing with this Garda scandal over figures that were effectively falsified, for want of a better word. What is Dr. Bedford's view on that?