Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am watching the proceedings in the Chamber and will have to leave in a few minutes. I have a couple of short points to make. Deterrence theory and how more visible police enforcement improves the perception of a certainty of being detected and, therefore, being punished has the biggest impact on offending and on people breaking the rules of the road, etc, is mentioned in the RSA's report. That is one of the key issues all of us have been talking about. The level of Garda enforcement is also one of the key issues. While I understand the GoSafe vans have a role to play, we have become too dependent on them as the main factor in detecting speeding, in particular. I spoke to someone recently and she admitted that she had probably for quite some time always felt she was in a rush. She was rushing to pick up kids or to work and was always driving too fast. One day a patrol car with its lights flashing came up behind her, pulled her over and the garda gave her a stern talking-to. She has discovered she can rearrange her life and drive within the speed limit. She said driving past the speed van and saying, "God, do you think I was caught with that?", would not have had anything like the same effect as having that person in a uniform approach her and give her a stern talking-to. That is what is missing in this. From a crime prevention point of view, a garda is watching other things besides speed. He or she will be there for everything else as well which is one of the key issues we need to get right.

The other issue that was mentioned was that so many people nowadays are found to not be wearing their seat belts, which very much surprises me because in the vast majority of modern cars or cars that are ten years old or more, if the driver does not wear the seat belt, an alarm goes off in the car. Is it that people buckle their seat belts underneath and do not wear them? Is that what is going on? Should there be a particularly high penalty if motorists are found to be trying to cod the system rather than just casually not bothering to put it on?