Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Road Safety Authority's plan for 2007 to 2012 was approved by Cabinet and was launched by the Minister, other colleagues and me last week. The primary target of that strategy is to reduce road deaths to no greater than 60 fatalities per million population by the end of 2012. This would equate to an average of 21 road deaths per month or 252 per year. The average number of road deaths per month so far this year is 28. The request for tender to operate speed cameras was recently issued and six companies were shortlisted. More than 30,000 people have been tested under the mandatory alcohol testing. Overall, there is a downward trend. As has happened over the past ten years, in 1998 and 2003, we received the road safety report, and this one contains over 120 recommendations.

It was clear from the reaction of the public, and of Members of the House, that while people supported these measures, the fact that we did not allow enough time for them was considered unfair. Although the decision had the unanimous support of the RSA and others, quite correctly the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, having reflected on it for a short period, believed it was unfair for provisional driving licence holders and made his changes on that basis.

With regard to the Deputy's last question, it is challenging to try to deal with the backlog in a short period of time but at least people will be given an opportunity to regulate their position. I believe there will be a good result. Some people have driven with provisional licences for up to 20 years or so, although proportionally their number is not too high at between 20,000 and 30,000. Many others have not been taking the law seriously. Holders of first provisional licences are supposed to be accompanied by a licence holder but that rule has not been enforced. By next July, however, everybody must be on the right side of the law when the gardaí start to enforce this measure.

The backlog of approximately 130,00 should be dealt with by March and the remainder must be dealt with by the summer. To achieve this, the Minister will require additional resources, which he hopes to get from the Minister for Finance, to increase the number of driving tests in the private sector. If we can achieve that, the figures should be brought into line by summer. It will be demanding but I believe there will be a huge amount of compliance in the next number of months. People will study their DVDs and take their tests. More important, people who did not bother previously to sit the driving test will now have to do it.

It is a sensible solution rather than forcing people off the roads immediately, which would have happened had the order taken effect yesterday. The Road Safety Authority and others thought it was the right thing to do but one must take a pragmatic view and that is what the Minister has done.

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