Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome Ms O'Donnell and congratulate her on her appointment. We will give her our full support in confirming her nomination. I wish her well in the task she is undertaking. I also recognise the work Mr. Gay Byrne has done. Ms O'Donnell has big shoes to fill, but I have every confidence that she will more than surpass the achievements that have been made to date. She will bring her own style and skills set to that difficult job.

She is joining a very important and wonderful organisation. It was established in recent years and it is a highly professional team of people who have done exceptional work in developing the strategy in tandem with the Government. It is now on the fourth strategy. Huge achievements have been made by the organisation, in tandem with the Government, in terms of the number of lives that have been saved and the number of people saved from serious injury.

Undoubtedly, there is a challenge ahead. Mr. Byrne made it very clear to the Government on his appointment that he did not intend to be a patsy, as it were, for the Government. He laid down a challenge to the Government at an early stage that if it did not follow through on the commitments that were made, he would not remain in the role. I hope and expect that the same will apply to Ms O'Donnell. Knowing her style, she has never been one to sit on the sidelines and allow things to happen against her will. She has always been very forthright and I expect her to bring that strength of character not in terms of standing up to the Government but working with it in a strong and effective way.

While the organisation is run exceptionally well and Ms O'Donnell will now be its public face and will be involved in developing a high profile strategy for maintaining the importance of saving lives on the road, there is an area that falls outside her competency, unfortunately, which is enforcement. Both Mr. Gay Byrne and the previous chief executive officer of the organisation were quite forthright in ensuring that both the strategy and the efforts made on enforcement were aligned in so far as possible. That will be a challenge for Ms O'Donnell. I wish her well in the effort to ensure that sufficient resources are in place to deal with enforcement. Any independent observer of the slide in the good results of recent years would have to consider a reduction of investment in the ability of the Garda to patrol as effectively as it might wish. That is the area of greatest concern for me. It does not relate directly to Ms O'Donnell's role but it feeds into that role in terms of her interaction with the Government. Perhaps she would comment on that aspect.