David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

Though I could respond to that, I will not do so.

In my area, there is a pressing need to bypass Killeagh and Castlemartin in east Cork. I also wish to draw the Minister's attention to another serious issue. On some dual carriageways there are medians allowing people to cross from one side to another. With the increase in the volume and speed of traffic, that is becoming very dangerous. Imagine a person crossing from one side of a dual carriageway, turning right into the traffic on the other side, which is coming down against him or her. One miscalculation is all that is needed for a major pile-up. There are places where that is waiting to happen, and the Minister should move on it immediately. It might have been all right ten years ago to have such medians on dual carriageways, but nowadays it is not. There are several around the country, and they are extremely dangerous.

The Minister should investigate medians on dual carriageways straight away, asking the NRA to supply him with the information, including their location around the country, with a view to closing them if necessary but preferably to providing overpasses and slip roads to allow safe passage from one side to the other. One does not see such extremely dangerous medians in Britain or other parts of Europe. People in those areas are worried that the NRA might take the cheap option of simply closing the medians, thus necessitating people travelling many miles to cross to the other side. It is very serious, and I do not want to comment in this House next year or the year after on a major smash because a slow-moving vehicle crossed the median and stalled after its driver miscalculated the speed of oncoming traffic.

I also welcome the Bill's changes regarding taxis. As I read matters, there has been concern for some years that virtually anyone can secure a licence to drive a taxi. There have been several cases of offences committed by taxi drivers, including assaults on passengers. I have met a fair number of taxi drivers in the course of my travels, and the overwhelming majority are respectable, honourable people who work long hours to earn a living, and they are appalled at such offences. It is important that we have a system to ensure that, when anyone — a child, one of us or any other citizen — gets into a taxi, it is driven by someone who can be trusted not to assault or attack and who has no record of such crimes. That is important, since a lone child is vulnerable in a taxi. I understand that the question is covered in the Bill; it must be enacted quickly.

It has also come to my notice that accidents involving people on legal drugs such as hay fever remedies and so on have soared. Taking medicines can quite often make people incapable of driving. We must make them more aware of the issue, and perhaps the Minister might examine people driving under the influence of medication. There are warnings on the bottles in small print, but people ignore them. Another quite important issue that alarms me and many other colleagues is that many accidents occur very late at night or in the early hours — 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. In many cases people are falling asleep at the wheel. In other countries campaigns have been initiated to make people aware that they should not drive when tired, something that the Minister might take on board.

We all live in very fast-moving and busy times, and many citizens work extremely hard. Increasing numbers of people are driving late at night when they are too tired, and we must take that into account. It is not dealt with in the Bill, but perhaps it should be. Perhaps the Minister might consider it. Some people drive without sleep for as long as 19 hours. That is unbelievable. It is understandable that a driver could fall asleep at the wheel on long stretches of road.

I refer to an issue, which may be considered humorous. Derek Davis raised the need for stopover points on motorways, in particular, on RTE radio recently. Service stations are provided in France, Germany and Great Britain and if one needs to go to the loo, one can pull in and go but that is not the case in Ireland. What does one do in Ireland if one needs to go while travelling during the night? One can drive 40 miles and pull in at a garage only to be told there is no loo or the key to the loo has been lost. It is important that this issue should be addressed and, where motorways are constructed in future, service stations should also be built so that drivers can pull in and freshen up if they feel tired or if they want to spend a cent. I wish the Bill good speed.

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