Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy should at least show me some respect and allow me to answer the question. A face-to-face public consultation process, which I attended, took place in December. I will not say that the RSA has been snowed under with submissions, but it has received very substantial submissions, all of which are very good. There is no point in producing something for the sake of it, and that is not what the people in the RSA are doing. These people are hugely committed to ensuring that we continue the downward trend to become one of the best countries in the world when it comes to road safety. That is an enormous task. The authority has been working on this for only three months. We are through three months of this year and I am prepared to give the RSA the time for the mandate it has been given by the Oireachtas under the legislation that set it up. The type of legislation, including primary legislation, we will need and the issues that must be regulated will flow from that.

What is happening at the moment is the core elements of it. We have strong law and enforcement in place. Random breath testing has a huge impact in the public domain, with 30,000 tests being carried out each month. I, with the Deputy and everybody else in this House, have enormous sympathy for the families that faced tragedy on our roads. Unfortunately, as we all know, much of it comes back to driver behaviour. While we will put strategies in place, I do not want to argue that a strategy per se will solve everything. We need to change driver behaviour and attitudes on our roads. That is central to why other countries are so much better than us. It is because it is anathema in societies in other countries to drink and drive, to wantonly speed and do the things that some people believe they can do on the roads, which we have all seen on our television screens. It is utterly unacceptable. We must ensure that, in conjunction with legislation and policy, we bring about the culture change needed.

The RSA knows full well that the Deputy and all those in this and the other House are anxiously awaiting the road safety strategy, but it has told me that it wants the time to get it absolutely right. Nothing has come to me at this stage so it is not as if, as the Deputy seems to imply, I have been sitting on a draft in my Department. I respect the work being carried out by the RSA and believe the strategy will be a formidable document when it arrives. As soon as it arrives, I will go to the Government with it and any legislation that arises will be brought before the House.

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