Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

No, I do not agree with any of the Deputy's points. The Road Safety Authority brought forward the comprehensive proposals, as it has done for some time. The authority is doing excellent work. The range of measures and the resources we have allocated to them, including the traffic corps, have achieved an enormous advance from the previous position, where there was carnage on the roads.

As always with these questions, there is an attempt to switch the issue. Three or four years ago I was answering questions about the carnage on the roads and what we were doing about it. Now, 30,000 mandatory alcohol tests are carried out. We are working on proposals, which involve strict legal complexities, for dealing with what happens on the roadside. I explained this issue in the House two weeks ago. We have established a dedicated traffic corps comprising 800 personnel and the Road Safety Authority was vested last year. There is a ministerial road safety committee and penalty points have been introduced and extended. All these measures have helped to deal with the issue. The Cabinet discussed the more than 126 proposals at length, both in draft and detailed form. Obviously, we do not discuss every last detail of procedure but we discussed them at length.

With regard to the Garda, the Minister was quoting on Sunday directly from what Assistant Commissioner Rock said at the press conference. It was taken from his reply. Deputy Kenny appears to have got this wrong but, in fairness, he was not at the press conference. When a question was asked at the press conference, Assistant Commissioner Rock stated that if the order was coming into force on 30 October, the gardaí would take a pragmatic view of its implementation. The Minister did not say that, so no pressure is being applied.

The Garda was consulted. Assistant Commissioner Rock was involved in the press conference and in the presentation of the report. The Garda was involved. As to whether it was discussed throughout the force, that is a matter for the Garda, although I do not believe it was.

Deputy Kenny has made a bad call. He and others have said that this will affect 120,000 people. It was not affecting 120,000 people but 430,000. When considering the order, everybody referred to 120,000 but the entire number of provisional licence holders is 430,000, ranging from first to fifth provisional licences.

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