Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On his last point, we did not have a chance to discuss that earlier. He is right. The ability to avoid clogging up the courts is important. People would have to pay double in those circumstances, but that is better than a court hearing. It is also better for the courts. It is a welcome provision in the Bill. I also agree with Deputy Matthews on scramblers, e-bikes and automated vehicle testing. They are all future orientated, in particular bikes and automated vehicles.

I want to make a comment on the M50 in response to what Deputy Matthews said. This is a critical Bill. It is very local in a sense, but the M50 is used by a lot of people every day. I speak as someone who spent three weeks at the oral hearings on the widening of the M50. I had an interest in it at the time as a transport campaigner. Various things stood out. It has been expanded as far as it can go. We cannot add any additional capacity. It is at capacity, even during Covid. It will become increasingly a traffic management issue in terms of how we deal with a road which is clogged and at capacity.

In terms of what the Deputy experienced whereby a traffic jam came out of nowhere, it has some unusual flow and engineering characteristics. There can be a traffic jam 2 or 3 km away from an incident or junction which causes a change to traffic flows. We have to manage the motorway. The speed regulations will help that. Based on my personal experience - others may have different experiences - I find it a difficult road to drive on and navigate because there are many lanes joining and complicated junctions. For people coming from the N7 to the Red Cow interchange, getting into the right lane is not an easy job. It is a nervous experience, and even though I am a fairly experienced driver, I find it challenging. A lot of people do.

We have real safety issues. There have been accidents on the road. Smaller accidents that occur daily can often be expensive in terms of the congestion they create. More than anything else, in terms of safety, the variable speed system will give us the ability, if there is an accident, to slow everything down straight away and help to avoid further accidents. If we have to close a lane, it will give us lane management capability.

The TII control centre, which is run on a full-time 24-7 basis, provides advanced monitoring of what is happening on the road. I happened to be there when a car broke down on the fast lane, as it were. I said, "God Almighty, that is a dangerous situation." Cars were going by at 100 km/h. I wondered whether the person could get out and how we would get to the car and so on. The variable speed capability would allow us to manage that system safely. The control centre would watch the road morning, noon and night. It would be able to determine there was a problem, slow everything down and instruct on the use of a lane. One of the most significant elements of the Bill is that it gives us the capability to manage the M50.

There may well be other instances around the country where we need to do the same. TII is ready to go. It will start with a trial period before the Bill is enacted. This is important because many people probably share what I experienced. It is a difficult road to drive, even at the best of times. I am sorry for the long contribution but it is an important issue.