Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I was not exactly going to join Fianna Fáil as a result but I was very impressed. I was very impressed with Deputy Mattie McGrath. He made a commendable speech. Even the Members on this side of the House were inclined to applaud.

This Bill is positive and its purpose is to amend the law and make provisions that it is hoped will ultimately improve congestion and reduce the number of accidents. I want to raise a number of matters that have not necessarily been raised to date. Over the years I tabled numerous parliamentary questions on road traffic accidents. I never got the answers but know they were available. I used to ask about the degree to which drink driving was associated with individual road accidents and discovered some peculiar facts. For instance, if a pedestrian had a drink and was struck by a car, it was deemed that the accident was caused by drink driving. It may not have been the driver's fault at all.

I do not agree with many of the views expressed by Deputy Mattie McGrath. There are issues that need to be considered in the overall context of what is occurring. There are a number of factors that cause road accidents. Bad driving habits comprise a very serious cause, as is evident from how motorists approach roundabouts, for example. The practice should be that one gives way to traffic on a roundabout. One does not have to give way to traffic half a mile from the roundabout that is driving at 70 km/h or 80 km/h but there are those who believe one should.

Bad driving habits that are unfit to take traffic travelling beyond a certain speed are also a factor. It is not possible to change the speed limits every four or five miles, although this has been attempted. However, it is possible to improve the roads. At this stage we should have improved them. A great number of accidents are being caused all over the country by roads that are inadequate and totally unsafe. Given that this is the case, preaching about how we should drive is taking us to the fair.

A section of a roadway in my constituency has cost the lives of 24 people in the past 18 or 19 years. None that I knew was inebriated at the time of the accident, but the accident took place nevertheless. That should send a message to everybody. People eventually got the message and road improvements took place, yet the roadway is still not perfect. There have been accidents thereon in recent years.

I draw to the attention of the Minister for Transport and his Department the absolute necessity to tackle the condition of roads. There is no use saying we will reduce the speed limit to whatever limit is required to make the roads safe. One cannot make them safe or travel safely on them.

Speed is another cause of accidents. One can travel on roads in this country which have a 100 kph speed limit and one can reach a section of the road that is incapable of taking a vehicle at any speed above 50 kph or 60 kph. I cannot understand how that happens. However, there are also sections of relatively good roads which have a speed limit of 50 kph or 60 kph for some unknown reason. I cannot understand the rationale for that either.

Poor lighting in urban and rural areas, particularly at junctions, is definitely a major contributory factor in accidents. I accept we cannot eliminate all accidents. There always will be accidents. One cannot eliminate them unless the wheel is banned or its shape changed to ensure it does not work anymore or one puts a guy carrying a red flag in front of every vehicle. Accidents cannot be abolished so we must try to reduce the potential for accidents and the factors that contribute to them. I have no doubt that poor lighting is a major contributory factor in accidents. Mechanical failure in vehicles is also undoubtedly a contributory factor. Despite the existence of national car tests, NCTs, and various ways and means of checking vehicles, a number of accidents have occurred in the past four or five years, with tragic consequences, in the course of the application of legislation regarding possible mechanical failure, NCTs and so forth. While it remains a fact that there is a necessity to reduce the number of accidents, with all the legislation we have in place there are situations which we do not appear to be able to identify and deal with beforehand.

Another matter that has been mentioned on a number of occasions recently is the notion that if there is a very lucrative speed trap system that involves cameras and all kinds of regulatory police other than gardaí, we will have a safer system. I do not believe that. All it will produce is a huge amount of entrapment whereby the person who does not generally speed will be caught in a particular area at a particular time. Some drivers habitually speed. One knows them when one sees them. If one sees a speed camera sign on the road and a driver goes shooting past, one can be sure the driver does it all the time. Those type of drivers do not care; they laugh about it. On the other hand, the ordinary, conscientious driver will automatically slow down, even though the camera might not be working. The warning is sufficient, and it may well be that the warning is as good anything else. I anticipate that in the future there will be a huge degree of enforcement, which will be hugely expensive. I believe there are other ways of doing it which would have the same effect but at much less cost.

I mentioned roads earlier. There are a number of accident blackspots. Most Members drive throughout the country from time to time and will be familiar with signs warning of an accident blackspot. What in God's name is being done about them? The simplest solution is to so something by repairing the blackspot or re-aligning the road. What about all these experts who tell Members of the House what we should be doing and what we are incapable of recognising? Why not do something about the accident blackspot? Eliminate it, as happened with the area to which I referred earlier that cost 24 lives. We can remove the accident blackspots by simply addressing the issues causing the accidents. It is nonsense to say the accidents were not anticipated. The fact is that if the area is identified as an accident blackspot, somebody somewhere must have known there was a problem with that section of road and that it would be a good idea if something was about it. If something was done about it, it could save lives. It is simple.

Another matter was mentioned by a colleague. I do not wish to disagree with a colleague but I know many families, as I am sure all other Members do, who have been bereaved as a result of road traffic accidents. I do not agree with the graphic advertising campaign. The theory is that it warns and shocks people who might not necessarily take note of their driving habits. I do not believe it does, but it upsets some of the bereaved families, although not all of them. It forces them to relive what happened. Some of the advertisements should be a little more sensitive in how they convey their message. It is true that some families that have been bereaved in that fashion do not have a problem with them and readily give their permission to produce them. However, it affects other families who, when they see the graphic portrayal of a road traffic accident, relive their experience. In some cases more than one family member might have lost their lives in such circumstances. Graphic details are not necessarily therapy for people in that situation. Perhaps the Minister will take on board this issue and examine what can be done about it.

I will not get into a debate about drink driving. Everybody knows we should not drink and drive. We also know people do it and have done it. It is against the law and that is the end of it. However, I have a doubt about the portrayal of the person who goes to the local pub once or twice a week and drives home, in either urban or rural areas, as being the major contributor to road traffic accidents. I do not mind the self righteous who will say I am suggesting something because I am not. I am merely posing a question. Do the statistics show anything about that type of situation? I have put down reams of parliamentary questions over the years in an effort to identify the cause or causes of individual accidents, but I am as wise now as I was when I started. Sadly, the information we get is imprecise. The Minister might not agree but in all the cases of which I am aware, and everybody knows about individual cases, I am always anxious to have that precise information.

Deputy Mattie McGrath is correct that there is a need to provide an alternative means of transport in rural areas. There is no public transport, for socialising or anything else. I listened to Members speaking in the House last night about the Luas being extended to all areas in their constituencies. There are many parts of this country that a Luas will never see and if a Luas were found or seen in those areas, the person who alleged they had seen it would be accused of being inebriated. We do not live in an equal society. There are people in parts of this country who do not have access to modern means of transport. One thing is certain, however. The social life generated by the rural tavern or pub will disappear and that will change the social fabric of our society. The danger that will arise from that, and there are already signs of it, is that there will be increased incidence of home drinking.

Home drinking caused serious problems in rural areas 60 and 70 years ago. There were very enterprising people who decided to make their own brew, which a gentleman from a certain part of the country referred to recently as "white whiskey". It became so prevalent and caused so much social strife in rural parts that clergy from all churches and community leaders everywhere came out and spoke strongly against it. I do not think anybody has recognised that. There is a danger it will cause a serious problem and it is beginning to show up already.

How many times in recent years have we seen accidents, assaults, serious assaults or killings at house parties? One did not have house parties 25 years ago; people went to the pub. The difference was they were in a supervised situation. There were a few exceptions, such as when people drank as much as they liked and drove as far as they wanted. Some people who did not drive at all could become obnoxious after having too much to drink. There was supervision in pubs and it was not unusual for a person to be told, in fairly explicit terms by a barman or the owner of a pub, that he or she had enough and should be going home, if he or she had a home to go to, which was the famous phrase. That does not happen in an unregulated, unsupervised drinking area. The future of social drinking, in rural Ireland in particular, could be headed in the wrong direction. It requires close observation and, if we do not do that, we could have equally serious consequences further down the road.

I am in favour of changing and improving the law, and making it more effective. Given the amount of legislation which has come before the House over the years, very few Bills have been proven to be effective, workable and do the job they were intended to do. For example, last year the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill came before the House. I understood it was introduced to ban guns from people who shoot people in the middle of the night all over this city, other cities and the country, but it was not. It dealt with the control and regulation of legally held guns throughout the country. I could not believe it. The theory was the guns could be stolen by people with nefarious intent, and would then be illegally held guns.

I wonder about Ministers. When they are too long sitting in the backs of Mercedes they get too comfortable. It must be too warm because there is something wrong. The practice I like best is when they preach to the rest of us on how we should travel up and down the country and what we should do in the circumstances we are likely to meet, while most of them have never driven a car in business mode for at least 25 or 30 years. I presume it is a great feeling, if one is a Minister. We hear a lot nowadays about experts - the Acting Chairman, who chairs the Joint Committee on the Constitution will know this - who tell us how we should do things. In most cases, they so from a pedestal.

Ministers have also been on a pedestal for a considerable length of time. From listening to backbenchers on the other side of the House, I can understand their frustration because there is no doubt a vast gulf is developing between what Ministers have to say to us on this side of the House. It may sound funny and exasperating. I have been a backbencher while in government and understand what it is like. There is nothing as galling as listening to preaching from people who have not lived in the real world for 25 or 30 years of their lives. They are walking and driving in a cloud and a bubble. They pontificate about how the law should affect the general public, having been carried around, cosseted, protected, looked after, dusted down and aired at every possible opportunity.

Is the Acting Chairman practising a cast for a fishing competition?

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