Mr. Gerry McMahon:

What I would like to come out of the meeting today is, that our organisation, as the assistant commissioner stated, is pro-road safety. We do not shirk our responsibilities. We are involved, particularly at present. There is a new education process starting between ourselves. We are trying to get a new apprenticeship going for drivers and part of that would involve road safety issues. No doubt the alcohol limits and drug limits will form part of that.

It must be clear that we are employers. I said that earlier. We are not enforcers and we should not be asked to be enforcers.

We all have a duty of care which we will not shirk. In our contracts of employment we take cognisance of the responsibility of the drivers involved in driving our vehicles. Deputy Dooley brought this up before he left. Given the nature of the business we are in - we are a mobile industry - we are not specific to one site. It is very unfair to think that we can, as a body, be held responsible for the introduction of the new legislation in the way it is written.

We would give full support to introducing a proper mechanism involving roadside checks where An Garda Síochána can, as it does for alcohol, test for drugs. We will fully support that and I believe that comes through in our submission. I thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak before them. It is important that organisations such as ours get opportunities at this stage of legislation.