Professor Denis Cusack:

Very briefly. I thank Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. I am familiar with some of the country roads around Killorglin but not all of them, although I have driven over the mountains down into the Deputy's lovely town, Kilgarvan. Some of the local factors the Deputy raised are very important, but could I bring the matter back to evidence? Again, I am open to contradiction. In my years investigating accidents, I noted that we have not much evidence that mobile phone use, although it can cause crashes, causes crashes that cause deaths and serious illness. It could mean that we simply do not have the evidence, because it is actually very hard to get the evidence. When I was coroner, I always said, "Take the phone", or, as the Garda says, "Seize the phone", to see what happened on it. We need more evidence in this regard. Road conditions damage cars but, again, I am not sure we have the evidence that they cause serious crashes. However, they certainly do cause crashes.

The other point relates to the condition of cars. Only a small number of crashes relate to the condition of cars. I am referring in particular to bald tyres. One might say the success of the car test is that we have fewer dangerous cars. Putting all this together, we need to get evidence. I would concentrate very much on speed, alcohol, drugs and seatbelts. That is not to say that we should not have better roads or that we should not stop mobile phone use, but we need to put our resources where they need to be and make the Deputy's lovely village and the people using his local hostelry safer, such that people can come out at night or during the day, including at the weekend, and cross the road. Evidence-based crash-----