Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this work on behalf of the Minister and his colleagues in allowing for the greater use of CCTV in how we manage traffic on our roads and make our roads safer for all road users. I think we should be very ambitious in how we move forward in this particular area, as others have mentioned, in replicating the good work of other jurisdictions. One of those jurisdictions quite close to us, just across the Irish Sea, has successfully put in place a portal for the uploading of dashcam evidence and camera evidence from all road users, not alone cyclists but also motorists and others.

It is also important, as others have mentioned, that cameras are used within buses and bus lanes in general to ensure they are the most efficient way of moving people about, particularly in more heavily trafficked towns and cities.

I recently asked the Minister for Justice a parliamentary question about the creation of a portal for the uploading of dashcam evidence. The Minister's response was somewhat neutral but reasonably supportive. It referred to the Department of Transport, stating, "The Department of Transport has advised that any decision to allow film by members of the public to be used in evidence in road traffic cases would raise questions of reliability of, and possible tampering with, the apparatus used, as well as potential privacy issues." This will hopefully address some of the privacy issues. The fact of the matter is the Garda has sought and secured numerous successful prosecutions in our courts over the last four to five years using camera evidence submitted by cyclists. There is already a provision within legislation, due to good work done by the Minister's predecessor Shane Ross, creating a unique offence of dangerous overtaking of a cyclist. That legislation, combined with camera evidence submitted by cyclists, has already provided for the successful prosecution of a number of motorists with penalty points issued and fines imposed. There is no question about the reliability of this evidence. The courts have already decided it is perfectly acceptable to use that evidence in the prosecution of such cases. I implore the Minister and his colleagues to engage amongst themselves and with the Department of Justice to provide for such a portal under the very significant road safety plan recently published by the Road Safety Authority and the Department, Towards Vision Zero.