Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance and their interesting, informative presentation. It is alarming that we have this number of fatalities. The surge in the past six months seems to go against past trends. That level of fatality is unacceptable. We have had horror crashes, devastated families and broken communities. The message the witnesses are conveying is a stark warning that needs to be heeded, otherwise we will have continuance of this surge in deaths on our roads. I believe there should be more emphasis on prevention. If one wants to bring the public along, the message has to be about prevention, particularly with regard to young people.

I represent a rural county. The perception in rural Ireland is that there is a high Garda presence in rural areas. It often amazes me when I see that we have groups of young people congregating. I had the perception that many of these tragedies happen after nightclubs empty out and young people take to their cars, which eventually leads to fatal crashes. Many people in rural Ireland say to me that gardaí are out in rural areas, maybe watching an old guy coming out of a pub, and ask me why they are not outside a place where the local young lads and girls congregate to speak to and discourage them. They ask why we do not have gardaí in the car parks of places rather than being on the road to wait for them after they get into the car. They should say to young people that they are not in a position to drive and discourage them from driving. They should not wait until somebody is dead until they do it.

There is a perception in rural Ireland that the Garda is not doing the job properly. I am not aware of too many people being killed in zones with a 30 mph speed limit. I see one suggestion here is to start imposing further restrictions on 30 mph zones. That does not make sense to me. My view of it is that young people have to be educated that they cannot drink and drive and that by doing so, they are endangering themselves and their companions. That message is not being driven home enough. If we had a Garda presence where those young people are congregating, to give them that message, I think it would help. Every time I hear of an accident, when I look at where the traffic emerged from, it is usually a place where many young people congregate. I would like to see more emphasis on that.

Drug-driving is obviously a serious problem. Professor Cusack has given an example of how technical and difficult it is. The numbers increased and it involves a huge workload for gardaí. We have only started drug-testing on a real scale in Ireland over the past five or six years. What kinds of data do we have on that? Is drug-driving now as serious a problem as drink-driving? Somebody mentioned earlier that drugs may not be a problem in rural areas. Drug-driving is the same in rural areas as in urban centres and cities. We have drugs at every crossroads. There was a time when it was a city problem, then it became a town problem, then a parish and rural problem. Now it is a crossroads problem. There is drug-driving right across the country. How good are we at detecting that?

There was a suggestion in one presentation of how it should be possible to retrofit all cars with alcohol recognition ability.

How advanced are we in Ireland in regard to alcohol recognition ability? Have we made progress on it? There is an EU directive on it. What is the timescale for that? Have we any possibility of meeting it? Finally in regard to fatalities, everyone understands that a road is closed off in order for technical examinations to take place. Everyone is very sensitive to it. What is the chain of command in minor accidents? There have been many minor accidents on motorways as a result of which we had colossal chaos, a huge backup of traffic and very poor direction in rerouting traffic leading to massive delays and inconvenience to the public. There does not appear to be any chain of command. What is the protocol or the procedure when there is an accident? Who is responsible for what?