Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following:

""Act of 1994" means the Road Traffic Act 1994;".

This is a technical amendment associated with amendment No. 5 which refers to the introduction of mandatory alcohol testing at the scene of an accident. Amendment No. 19 refers to the introduction of mandatory drug testing at the scene of an accident. The Minister may not be aware that I have tried and failed on previous occasions to have these amendments incorporated into Roads Bills. It is essential to have this kind of testing, particularly the mandatory alcohol testing, at the scene of an accident.

The aim is not to punish somebody or apportion blame but to gather information about the causes, circumstances and context of road traffic accidents. I am constantly appalled at the lack of information about accidents. Information that is gathered is not collated or accessible. Gardaí gather information at accident scenes but file it away so no lessons are learnt from it. For example, even where the driver of a car is killed we do not know if he or she was a learner or held a provisional licence. It is not possible to find out how many accidents involve people driving on provisional licences. It is ludicrous not to have real information about the causes of accidents.

That information is fundamental to forming a road safety strategy and to shaping policy. Without it we make policy in a vacuum, basing it on anecdotal evidence or opinion which is not good enough. Speed, drink, drugs, use of mobile phones, driver fatigue, signing and lining on roads, road surfaces and design, vehicle failure and even the weather are blamed for accidents but without the information we do not know the actual causes. Policy must be based on hard information in order to be effective.The Minister, on a previous occasion, refused to accept the amendment on the basis that it would be unfair and, indeed, impossible to obtain a blood test from somebody who was unconscious at the scene of an accident. That would be ludicrous but it is not what I am requesting and subsection (6) specifically states such a test should not interfere with any medical attention required. In other countries, where they have such legislation, when a person is hospitalised and a blood test is taken in the normal way that person is also subjected to an alcohol test. At the moment it is not even done as part of a post mortem when people are killed so we are operating in a vacuum.

Amendment No. 19 asks the Minister to introduce automatic roadside drug testing. There is anecdotal evidence that driving and drug taking is widespread but the Minister refused previously to accept these amendments because he felt no adequate, comprehensive roadside test was available. That is true because no procedure can test for all drugs. Nevertheless, that has not stopped other countries from testing for the principal recreational drugs. Nobody is suggesting we test for prescribed drugs because the vast majority of the population would be taking some form of prescribed drug.

I have tried to make this amendment as flexible as possible to give the Minister flexibility as to when he introduces it and to enable him to determine which drugs to test for. Society's drug of choice changes over time so I have tried to make it as flexible as possible and I ask the Minister to show the same flexibility in responding.

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