Dáil debates

Thursday, 28 September 2006

3:00 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister's response. The television campaigns that have been promoted by the two road authorities in Ireland to date have been welcome, hard-hitting and quite effective. Road safety goes beyond that, however. Does the Minister agree there is a need to consider the harmonisation of road signs, speed limits, driver education and testing and, as he mentioned, penalty points? Does he agree there is a need to accelerate the recognition of penalty points in the form he outlined? Is there an indicative timeframe for when that will come about? I refer not only to offences which attract penalty points, but also to offences which attract penalties which are less serious than disqualification. Can the Minister indicate when the EU convention on disqualifications will come into effect? He mentioned that he hopes the bilateral agreement will come into effect within a few months. Has any work been done on different road surfaces and signals? It would be practical and effective to introduce measures in respect of a number of different aspects of road safety. All of us on the island of Ireland should benefit from the exact same road safety campaigns, speed limits, road signs and driver testing procedures. We could even bring the criteria used to test cars in our national car test and the test offered by the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland into line with each other.

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