Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on this issue before the long weekend, the first summer weekend, and acknowledge the work the Garda is doing in this area. The traffic corps has been extended. During the past six or seven years an enormous amount of effort has been put into road transport and road safety issues. Every year we have reviewed that work and have tried to improve on it. While the number of deaths over a few bad weekends are high, road safety continues to be a huge priority of the Government. It is not just the traffic corps that is involved in the efforts to try to prevent accidents and monitor speed limits. Speed cameras have been extended throughout the country but there are not enough of them. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has asked not only the traffic corps section the Garda in general to be more vigilant on the motorways. While the numbers designated to do this work are small the reason the Minister sought 2,000 extra gardaí in his plan last year was to be able to substantially increase the number in the traffic corps.

Work has continued on the penalty points initiative and the associated breaches. The genuine effort of everybody involved to extend the penalty points system has worked extremely well. Deputy Kenny made the key point that speed on roads is the problem. Our roads have improved, our cars have improved, the number of Garda involved in this initiative has increased but people are engaged in speeding. One cannot have a Garda on every road, motorway and back road to monitor people's driving habits.

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