Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I understand the advice of the Attorney General was the direct opposite to what the Taoiseach just read out. I drive between 40,000 and 50,000 miles per year and the numbers of road checks I come across throughout the country are few and far between. The public like to see gardaí conducting traffic checks. However, the perception is that the penalty points system is being used as a money gathering exercise with gardaí checking for speed as drivers leave a town between the 50 km/h and 60 km/h speed limits.

The Government is not really serious about the matter. It has done nothing about the use of mobile phones when people are driving. It has done nothing about roadside drug testing. I understand that of those who tested positive at least 20% were driving following substance abuse. The Government has done nothing about real training for motorcyclists, who now come up behind cars at considerably in excess of 100 mph in many cases, as I have seen personally. The Government has done nothing about cutting back on the number of people driving with provisional licences, which exceeds 400,000 — the vast majority of these drivers are unaccompanied by a full licence holder. It has done nothing about a real education programme for young people or for non-nationals driving here who come from a different culture and who may have difficulty switching over at short notice to driving on the left as opposed to the right hand side.

The Government could have taken far more decisive action in attempting to meet its targets, as set out in the road safety strategy, to save lives, which is what it is about. The Minister for Transport has failed in his responsibility to achieve these targets and has let the Government down. I again ask the Taoiseach, as I did on 23 November, whether he is prepared to personally take charge of this element of a fundamental issue relating to safety on Irish roads and use the power of the Office of the Taoiseach to see that these things happen. The public will obey, but they must know the regulations exist and are enforced. It is the responsibility of the Taoiseach to see that the facilities and resources are provided to ensure that happens.

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