Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I welcome the Bill and I cannot imagine there will be any resistance to it passing swiftly through the Dáil. It adds to the already large body of legislation that has been enacted over the years. There has been such a cultural shift in the past 30 years. I remember car parks outside pubs that were absolutely chock-a-block 20 or 30 years ago. I am thinking of The Hitching Post in Leixlip, which is now a supermarket. There used to be cars parked out on the road because the pub's very large car park was full. There has been such a change in culture and attitude since then, and we need to continue that.

I welcome the clarity that has been brought to the Bill in respect of categories such as a person with a driving permit and a professional driver. I would have thought it was a given that somebody who was involved in a serious vehicle accident would have been tested, but it is welcome that this Bill makes that very clear. There are provisos to that whereby it will not be done if it is injurious to the individual.

The Road Safety Authority has done some excellent work on the road safety strategy, but I do not think we should look exclusively at fatalities. A programme was recently broadcast about rehabilitation and the life changing injuries that are just as significant when we consider how to factor in the importance of continuing to change that culture and make sure that there is compliance.

There are different elements to road safety, and one of those is the issue of penalty points. I did a bit of analysis on penalty points about 18 months ago. My own constituency had the highest penalty point count, yet the number of fatalities and accidents did not warrant that. I got a big print out from the Department of Transport, and I was able to narrow it down to the locations where more than 100 penalty points had been issued. I found 56 such hot spots and obviously the people who got those points could be from any part of the country. However, when I examined it further, there was one location where 3,269 penalty points were issued since the penalty points system began. Ironically, that location is the widest and safest road in the country. It is a three lane carriageway - a segregated road - between the Red Cow roundabout and the Kildare county boundary. I remember being at council meetings in Kildare when officials argued that segregating traffic creates a much safer environment, yet that was the location where the largest number of penalty points were issued. I intend to look at these figures again because I know the regime has changed, but this is about shooting fish in a barrel rather than road safety.

We must be serious about placing Garda and other speed checks at appropriate locations. It is interesting to note there is insufficient space for a speed check vehicle at some of the most dangerous locations on the roads. People know full well there will not be a speed check on windy roads because in many cases there is insufficient space for a speed check vehicle to pull in. I could draw attention to a number of specific locations where there is a high accident rate and one does not see speed checks. The figures in this regard need to be closely scrutinised.

Section 3 deals with persons who knowingly drive a dangerous vehicle. I presume, perhaps wrongly, that the inclusion of this section may have been influenced by a "Prime Time" programme broadcast a number of months ago. It is unacceptable for a person who decides to leave his or her car at home to discover that the taxi in which he or she is travelling is unsafe. I have doubts about the roadworthiness of some vehicles on the road, including some of the taxis in which I have travelled in recent months. The Taxi Regulator and the Garda Síochána must ensure enforcement is tight in this area.

While road design and upkeep are important factors, speeding is a very serious aspect of road safety. It is essential that regulations on drink driving, speeding and other aspects of road safety are enforced because without enforcement, it is pointless to enact legislation.

Since my re-election to the Dáil, I have continually raised with the Minister for Justice and Equality the issue of the distribution of Garda personnel. It is clear that the gardaí in training in Templemore will be the last recruits for some time. There is no doubt that no new gardaí will be recruited to augment Garda numbers in areas in which numbers are low relative to the size of the population. As a result, areas that are weak in terms of Garda numbers will pay a price for the lack of recruitment. The worst county in terms of Garda personnel relative to the size of the population is Kildare. Other counties with low numbers of gardaí include Meath, Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Laois and Offaly. The Kildare Garda division had 328 gardaí serving a population of 209,000 in September 2010, despite the county having the fourth highest population in the State, having overtaken, in population terms, the county and city of Limerick in the census before last. This means each garda in the county is responsible for 640 people. The position at other locations is dramatically different. For example, the Sligo-Leitrim Garda division has 331 gardaí serving a population of 97,000. In other words, counties Sligo and Leitrim, with a population 110,000 lower than that of County Kildare, have more gardaí.

If Garda numbers are low in terms of the size of the population, it will have an impact on the quality of the service provided, including enforcement. There is no point in having excellent laws in place on drink driving and speeding if it is not possible to carry out Garda checks. Having spoken to the Minister for Justice and Equality about this issue, it is his view that Garda deployment is a matter for the Garda Commissioner. It appears, however, that the approach adopted to deployment is "what one has one holds" and that it is not possible to transfer gardaí between divisions. We have the additional problem of the moratorium on recruitment. These are major issues which will have a significant impact on the ability of the Garda to enforce the legislation before us.

As I stated, some of the initiatives taken in the Bill are very welcome in that they provide for a degree of clarity where there was none previously. The legislation also ensures there will be a better chance of enforcing the law where transgressions are detected and cases brought before the courts. The decision to differentiate between classes of drivers is an important and welcome one. I hope the Bill which I support will contribute to improving road safety.

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