Mr. Con O'Donohue:

To go back to the Deputy's point in terms of roadside screening, at present, under current legislation, all we can do is carry out the field impairment tests which start in November. The tests being carried out at the moment are to walk in a straight line, finger on the nose and to look at pupils. In terms of drugs the committee has already had a presentation from Professor Denis Cusack of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety. He would have given examples of the samples received at the Medical Bureau of Road Safety. Regardless of the opinions of the persons intoxicated, an analysis of those samples would show that there is a sizeable proportion of people with drugs in their system. What we want to do is to be able to screen people better at the side of the road.

The technology is complex. Deputy Dessie Ellis touched on it earlier in terms of how many drugs the equipment will be able to test for. There are variations in the equipment. That is the work that is being done by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety. Who will supply the Garda with the equipment to help us enforce the legislation? That is important. The Garda is quite good at recognising the signs of intoxication and that is proven by the samples that go to the Medical Bureau of Road Safety to be tested for the presence of drugs. What is happening with the legislation is that we are trying to get to a point where we do not always have to show the full impairment for people. At the moment, if a person has drugs in his or her system, as opposed to alcohol, we have to show that the person has drugs in his or her system and that it has impaired the driving. We certainly want to get to a situation where, if a person is detected with illicit drugs in his or her system, then automatically one has committed an offence. We want to stop people driving with illicit drugs in their system.

Prescribed medicines are just that, prescribed medicines. Guidelines are issued in respect of those. With the help of the pharmacist, the doctor and the person to whom the medicine has been prescribed that can be managed quite well. We certainly have not had issues in the past of people complaining that they had been arrested for impaired driving because they were on prescription medicines. That has never been an issue that has been brought to our attention at any stage. We would not have any fears in that regard. However, the equipment and the technology for screening people at the side of the road will be important and critical but it is much more difficult to tie down than alcohol because of the range of drugs available.