Mr. David Fitzgerald:

They could with the right legislation in place. The initial plan with the Garda is that it has ANPR technology in a lot of the road policing vehicles. It plans to add our database to that. Then it has a big investment in a mobility programme whereby it is rolling out a lot of what look a bit like handheld mobile devices. There are a lot of apps on them to check different things like motor tax and driver licensing. The insurance app will then go onto those mobile devices as well.

With modern cameras, gardaí can read a licence plate from more than 1 km away and process it quickly against databases. There are exciting possibilities for the use of technology. Of course, there needs to be a safe legal basis to do so. I suspect additional legislation would be needed for the GoSafe vans. The Garda would be best placed to advise on that.