Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

A point that needs to be made is that while this legislation is welcome it is long overdue. This debate is about taking responsibility for a problem that has robbed us of almost 2,500 lives in the past six years. The Government is not solely to blame for these deaths. There are a number of causes, including individual driver behaviour, driver error, vehicle standards and driving conditions, but the Government is charged with addressing these causes. This Bill should have been introduced a long time ago.

As road safety has improved significantly throughout western Europe on a percentage basis, Ireland is the only exception to that trend. Last year road accidents accounted for almost 400 deaths, and the trend this year indicates that figure will be matched. It should make for morbid reading for the Government and for Garda management because these figures prove measures being taken to encourage greater road safety are not adequate.

It is primarily up to the Government to make sufficient resources available to the Garda and for it to use the Garda effectively to reduce the carnage on our roads. That is the central point of this debate. Will the necessary resources be put in place to ensure this Bill will be effective? In the run up to the previous election, the now Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform promised that a 600 strong Garda traffic corps would be put in place but that is predicated on the recruitment of an additional 2,000 gardaí. The people were told in 2002 that this would happen if the then Government was re-elected. We have now been told that will not happen until early 2007 or perhaps later because the figures and the dates change and they will continue to change.

It is a matter of record that at least 80% of accidents are caused by human error. Despite campaigns to promote a greater safety consciousness, the causes of accidents remain speeding, drink driving and a cause of major injury is and will continue to be the non-wearing of seat belts.

When driving home the other night and I saw two gardaí checking cars on the road and while one might say that is welcome, they were on duty on a major road and not on a byroad, backlane or ditch where most accidents occur. They stopped every motorist ahead of me to check if motorists and passengers were wearing seat belts and as I did not see any motorist being asked to pull over to the side of the road, I gather all the motorists and passengers were wearing a seat belt. The majority of road deaths do not occur on the main roads of Cork, rather they occur on roads leading to seaside resorts, backroads and country roads and while driving on those roads I have never been stopped a garda. The speed traps in Cork are located mid-way down a section or at the end of a motorway where accidents, in the main, do not occur. Deputy Carey said he felt the equation of speed traps with fish in a barrel was unfair. The scarce resources that are available should be deployed on roads where accidents occur, namely, late at night on country roads on which one will never see a garda checkpoint.

Undoubtedly, the realisation that there will be a Garda presence on roads has a salutary effect on the behaviour of people, with last week being a case in point, but in the absence of the promised traffic corps, this response is often sporadic and seasonal in its application. There is a responsibility on road users to exercise care and safety, and the majority of them do so, but the number of cars on the road is increasing all the time, largely because of the socio-economic demands faced by families and lack of public transport.

However, despite such gruesome television advertisements, an average of 250 drivers are arrested for drink driving every week, and those are the ones who are caught. Research by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety for 2002 indicated that 90% of those arrested were over the alcohol limit. Apart from the fatalities, approximately 12,000 people are injured in road crashes every year and, of those, 1,500 are seriously injured. We should seriously examine those findings. In terms of those who are seriously injured, we have all met individuals who have been seriously injured and their families whose focus in life has had to shift as a result of a family member suffering a long-term injury. That is what we are talking about in this Bill.

Responsibility for road safety and implementing the road safety strategy stretches across four Departments, namely the Departments of Transport; Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Environment, Heritage and Local Government; and Health and Children. Yet there is little evidence that the issue is being taken seriously by the Ministers in those Departments. The truth is that for a long time there was a lethargy at the heart of Government where road safety was quite often perceived to be someone else's responsibility. Who would blame them? If I was the Minister for Transport and I had three other Ministers whom I could blame for inaction, why would I not do that? That is the difficulty.

I welcome Gay Byrne as our road safety supremo and the no nonsense approach he has adopted to date. I hope he continues in this manner and is successful. Hopefully, this new measure will bring a decrease in road carnage and put an end to our being the only state in Europe where road deaths are on the increase.

The Government's handling of this grave issue is so inept that it has been accused of criminal negligence, a damning charge levelled by Eddie Shaw, former chairman of the National Safety Council. Disillusioned, he resigned his post in protest over the coalition's lack of action in tackling road carnage. Sadly, almost 400 people died on our roads last year, a depressing increase on previous years and the worst death toll since 2001 when 411 people were killed. By May of this year, 168 people had already died on our roads. It is sometimes difficult to get the concept of these numbers into our heads. This Chamber has seats for 166 Deputies. If we add just two more, that is the number that died by May this year. This is deplorable.

Given the North's reduction in road deaths, the lowest since 1952, serious questions must be asked about the situation in the Republic. Despite their milestone achievement, authorities in the North are emphatic that the relatively low toll of 136 fatalities is still far too high. Improving road safety north of the Border is regarded as a major policing priority. In 2006, this priority will benefit from a two-track approach, education backed by robust enforcement. No stretch of the imagination could describe road safety enforcement here as robust. It is patchy, uneven and lacks resources.

According to Garda estimates, one third of all fatal road accidents are drink related. This puts a heavy onus on Government to provide the resources necessary for robust policing and enforcement of drink driving legislation. It goes without saying that many deaths are attributable to driver behaviour, but it is equally true that the behaviour of motorists is influenced by how Government policies are enforced.

The use of mobile phones in cars should be addressed. While it is good that fire officers and gardaí can use mobile phones while on duty, it is wrong for them to be allowed to use hand-held phones while driving vehicles. It smacks of penny-pinching that a hands-free unit is not supplied to these vehicles to allow them be used safely.

When I first suggested the use of random breath testing on a radio programme, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Transport, a Fianna Fáil Deputy, recriminated me and said it would be unworkable because of constitutional issues. Now, I wonder how minds were changed so quickly.

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