Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

On behalf of the Minister for Transport, I thank Deputies for their constructive contributions to an interesting debate concerning the important subject of road safety and, in particular, the operation of the penalty points and fixed charge systems. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, has asked that I take this opportunity to respond briefly on his behalf to some of those issues.

It is appropriate to take this opportunity to outline some of the fundamentals of the penalty points and fixed charge systems. The primary purpose of the penalty points system is to track breaches of driving regulations with a view to improving the driving behaviour of those who repeatedly commit these breaches. The design of the system required careful consideration of Irish circumstances, including the role of the courts in the administration of justice. In designing the penalty points system, the Department of Transport examined such systems operating in other jurisdictions and, where possible, adopted elements of them. However, the Irish system was tailored specifically to suit our laws.

Regarding the majority of penalty point offences, the option of paying a fixed charge is available and therefore penalty points are, in most cases, incurred when a motorist pays a fixed charge notice issued by the Garda for infringements of road traffic law. When the motorist pays the fixed charge, he or she is accepting the consequence that the prescribed number of penalty points will be endorsed on his or her driving licence record. As the Minister indicated last night, it is a matter for the motorist to decide whether to pay the fixed charge in lieu of going to court. It is a person's right to go to court and to contest the nature of the alleged offence.

Any suggestions that affect the basic rationale I have outlined for the penalty points and fixed charge system, such as the suggestions which we heard last night relating to a debt collection firm pursuing the payment of fixed charges or attaching an unpaid fixed charge to a renewal of motor tax can only be considered against the fundamental right of the motorist to reject the fixed charge option and to contest his or her case in court.

If the motorist opts for a court hearing, he or she avoids the automatic consequence of the application of penalty points on his or her licence record arising from payment of a fixed charge but runs the risk of being endorsed with a higher number of penalty points, which will automatically follow a court conviction, and is liable for a higher financial penalty by way of a court fine. The intended effect of these systems is to instil greater caution and responsibility in motorists and to transfer most of the enforcement of the system from the courts to an administrative process.

The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, outlined in detail last night how administrative systems operate between the various agencies involved, including the fact that reports are given to the Garda outlining the status of disqualified drivers and whether they have surrendered their licences to the licensing authority. It is an offence not to surrender one's licence and the Garda can pursue through the courts those drivers who fail to do so.

The Road Safety Authority, RSA, was responsible for developing the new road safety strategy for the period 2007 to 2012. It sought public consultation in October last year and received a substantial number of suggestions and proposals as a result of that process. It also engaged in a process of direct consultation with key stakeholders in December 2006. The level of consultation with stakeholders was very detailed and resulted in the development of a programme of actions which will be implemented by a range of Departments and agencies over the next six years.

As the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, outlined last night, a number of legislative proposals emanate from the strategy and he has indicated that he will consider any other issues raised by the Garda or the Courts Service in the development of legislative proposals in this regard.

Deputies O'Dowd, O'Mahony, Mitchell and Deenihan inquired as to the position on speed cameras. Speed continues to be a major contributory factor in causing deaths and injuries on our roads. The best way to ensure greater levels of compliance with speed limits is a wider deployment of cameras, which is planned. Speed enforcement is suited to the use of cameras and other facilities that do not depend on the immediate presence of gardaí. For this reason, the road safety strategy provides for the engagement of private sector interests in the operation of cameras. Decisions on the locations where cameras will be provided will be taken by the Garda in co-operation with the relevant authorities and will reflect both the experience of speed related collisions and evidence of a history of speeding.

In order to permit what has heretofore been a Garda activity, the Road Traffic Act 2006 contains provisions to support the operation of privately operated cameras. The operative date for the roll-out of the cameras, according to the road safety strategy, is the second quarter of 2008. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is the lead agency responsible for this project and is currently engaged in a procurement process.

Deputies Ó Snodaigh and Ring raised the issue of drug testing of drivers in the light of recent deaths related to drugs generally. The Road Traffic Acts provide that a member of the Garda Síochána, where he or she is of the opinion that a person in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle in a public place is under the influence of a drug or drugs to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of that vehicle, may require that person to go to a Garda station and further require that he or she submit to a blood test or provide a urine sample.

The Medical Bureau of Road Safety analyses blood and urine specimens received under the Road Traffic Acts for the presence of a drug or drugs. Enforcement of the law on drug-driving is a matter for the Garda Síochána. The Department of Transport will keep under review the development of technology internationally for roadside testing for drugs. There is no reliable equipment available for that purpose. When suitable technology becomes available, any measures applied to the roadside testing of drivers for alcohol will also be applied to drugs.

Deputies O'Mahony, Broughan and Ó Snodaigh referred to driving test waiting times. Since its establishment in September 2006, the Road Safety Authority has introduced several measures to reduce driving test waiting times. These include contracting SGS Limited to provide additional driving tests on its behalf. In the last year or so the average waiting time for a test has come down by approximately one third and the RSA continues to drive that waiting time down.

Following the recent changes to driver licensing provisions, the RSA has confirmed that all 122,000 applicants on the waiting list at the end of October will have been tested by early March 2008 and that by the end of June 2008 all applicants for a driving test will be able to get a test on demand, that is, within ten weeks. This does not mean there will be no waiting list at the end of June 2008.

In addition to these two commitments, the Minister for Transport has also requested the RSA to ensure all 120,000 people who were holders of second provisional licences at the time the changes were introduced in October will be offered a test before the end of June 2008. From that date, these drivers will be required to be accompanied by a qualified driver, a requirement which applied to all other learner drivers even before the changes.

Deputies O'Dowd, Broughan, Ó Snodaigh and Ring referred to the problems associated with endorsing penalty points on the driving licence records of non-national drivers. The Minister is conscious that enforcing penalties for road traffic offences by foreign-registered drivers raises many legal, organisational and procedural issues that make it difficult for any state to enforce those penalties. For this reason, the Department of Transport is pursuing this question at the European, British-Irish and North-South levels, where mutual recognition and cross-border enforcement possibilities are under consideration. This matter was discussed today at the North-South Ministerial Council.

I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate.

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