Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I wish to stick specifically to the Bill and deal with the provisions for the national vehicle and driver file. Data on penalty points is held on the driver file and, as it currently operates, this file is fundamentally flawed. A quarter of all drivers who qualified for penalty points could not receive them as they do not hold an Irish driving licence. We are allowing 25% of drivers who are breaching the law to get away scot free. All over the country we see lunatics overtaking on continuous white lines and travelling at the speed of light, yet many of their registration plates are Northern Irish, British or continental European. These people can come in to the jurisdiction and give two fingers to the Garda Síochána and to Irish road traffic legislation, as we have not been prepared to address the issue.

This Government has been in office for ten years and we have had ten years of road safety strategies. It promised in its original strategy that it would address this issue, but nothing has happened since. This has led to a litany of road traffic accidents, yet we are not prepared to do anything about it. This place has turned into a talking shop. The Minister for Transport will come before this House and say that we are discussing the issue with the Northern Ireland authorities, the British authorities and at EU level. These discussions have gone on for ten years, but nothing has happened to address the problem. People are getting away with breaking the law thanks to the system that is there at the moment, yet we continue to ignore it and brush it under the carpet.

This also applies to motor insurance. There are currently 100,000 vehicles on Irish roads without any insurance. Up to end of September 2007, 6,539 people had received penalty points for driving uninsured. Given that a quarter of drivers on our roads are exempt from the laws of this country as we cannot attach penalty points to their licences, many of these uninsured will get away scot free. The failure of 100,000 people to insure their vehicles costs the rest of us an additional €45 per annum, but we could address a quarter of them if penalty points were attached to drivers from outside this jurisdiction and if there was an up to date national vehicle and driver file.

This is not the only road safety issue in which promises have been ignored. In their contributions, the Minister and Deputy O'Connor made the point that the national vehicle and driver file is critical to support the road safety agenda in this country. It should be updated and modernised, and we should be able to deal with foreign drivers in this jurisdiction.

There is also a problem with people using driving licences as a form of identification for other breaches of the law. A five year old could forge our driving licences. I could get a forged Irish driving licence in the morning for €10. It is farcical to think that there is any security involved in it. All drivers are now required by law to carry their licences, a piece of paper that crumples easily. In 2003, the then Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, promised us that a credit card sized driving licence would be in place by 2004. The Minister said at the time that he was determined to have it in place by then. When I contacted the Road Safety Authority on this issue last week, I was told that the new directive means that it is not required to be in place until 2013, and that it is the objective to have it in place by 2012. We were promised this in 2004, but we will have to wait eight years before it is in place. In the meantime, that form of identification is an insult to anybody's intelligence. It is being blatantly flouted and those people on false licences cannot be given penalty points. The whole system is a farce.

Law abiding citizens in this country can be one or two miles per hour over the speed limit at the edge of a town, yet they receive penalty points from a garda taking the soft option. The people who give two fingers to the law do not receive points, which is something we cannot continue to ignore.

I would like to make a final point about the notification of change of ownership and vehicles that have been written off. More than 1,000 vehicles in the State have been written off, but are put back on the road. This cannot be ignored and is causing huge road safety problems.

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