Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was going to make that point. Is all of the information that the witnesses have very kindly shared with us publicly available? Can it be made publicly available on a website? Can the information be shared? I want to know the answer to all of my questions so that people who live in, say, County Longford, can assess whether their county is at the top or bottom of the league table or people in counties Donegal, Cork and Kerry or the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area. The more communication, information and knowledge on this, the better.

Technology has a big part to play. Big gantries have been erected on the M7 motorway and they are clearly incredibly effective. What about using technology? What about having blackbox technology in cars? What about dashcam technology that looks in at the driver to see if he on his phone, not behaving himself or not wearing a seatbelt? All of that data goes up into the cloud and then insurance companies can look at a person, and you guys can look at us and say, right, this guy is a good driver. I say "guy" and I mean it generically but clearly 88% of offenders are males so they are the bigger problem. It cannot be that difficult for all this information to be collected. All our information is collected on our phones every time we walk anywhere or do anything. People should be watched because I think that we all behave better when we are watched.

On penalty points, the late Seamus Brennan was my local Deputy. He was the Minister for Transport who introduced penalty points. He faced a fair bit of resistance for it at the time from everybody. I recall that he suggested that he would introduce a penalty of three points and within weeks behaviour had changed. I know that there are only about 70 offences now. It is a positive scheme and needs to be updated. Black box activity is also important.

Lastly, I do not know who deals with the national car tests, NCT, system. Is it the RSA or some other body? My NCT is not due for a while but I looked at the website to see when I could get an appointment at local NCT centres. I was shocked to discover that the next dates available are 6 December at Deansgrange and Greenhills, and 29 November. That clearly shows there is a problem with securing an appointment. I know that if one checks the website at 3 o'clock in the morning, one might find a vacant slot. Clearly, there is something wrong with the NCT system in terms of availability. What level of activity or enforcement is being done with people who drive cars that do not have a valid NCT certificate? I understand that it is illegal to do so and I do not know whether driving without an NCT invalidates vehicle insurance. Are there penalty points for it? Are they being enforced?