Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share time with Deputy Mattie McGrath.

As the other Deputies have said, road safety is an enormously important issue. The purpose is clearly to set up a system under which we can reduce fatalities as much as possible, and there are many different cogs in the wheel. The system must be absolutely transparent, and it feeds into many aspects other Deputies have touched on. I will not repeat points but I will deal with some of the issues the Minister is attempting to address.

The issue of young drivers needs careful attention. In many ways, like the benefits that accrue to young people who engage in sporting activities, I am all in favour of young people having a car because it can teach them to be more responsible and careful if it is done properly. Experience in other countries shows that part of that education should be provided through the school curriculum. While I appreciate the Minister's intention in introducing a requirement for people to acquire a minimum amount of logged accompanied driving experience, that means extra cost. It would have a far greater impact if road safety were taught in schools, and if a certain amount of driving experience were included in the school curriculum it could help people to be more responsible.

Regarding intoxicated drivers and the changes in the testing regime that the Minister proposes, I have sympathy with a number of Deputy Ellis's points. When we get into the realm of non-technological, cognitive tests we must rely on the evidence of maybe one or two gardaí against the witness. Where is the corroboration if, for example, a garda has an agenda against a person whom he or she stops? If the garda carries out a test, mar dhea, it may not be a technological test, with the evidence there for all to see, but may be based on the garda's arbitrary, visual assessment of the situation. That could be discriminatory against the person who is stopped. There are areas in which that could be misused by gardaí, and I am quite worried about that.

Commercial vehicle roadworthiness is incredibly important because it is not just driver activity but vehicle roadworthiness that dictates whether road safety will be enhanced. This area has been riddled with inaccuracies with regard to types of vehicle. For example, we have changes in the taxi regulations whereby a taxi driver can carry a maximum of four or five people, and where a taxi over the age of 15 years must be taken off the road, but a bus over the age of 15 years is fine. Age on its own is not a determinant of whether a vehicle is safe. The testing should be able to stand up regardless of the age of the vehicle.

I am worried because I have had dealings with people who operate commercial vehicles. One resident who was in touch with me had purchased a vehicle which had a full roadworthiness certificate attached to it. He bought the vehicle, brought it back and noticed a number of problems with it even on a visual inspection. He commissioned a private test and it found that the vehicle failed on an number of counts. On his behalf we have taken up that issue with the RSA and others to determine how this reputable centre could have certified this vehicle as roadworthy when two subsequent organisations said it clearly was not and could not have been at that time. The RSA has not been hugely helpful on that. It carried out a very casual inspection. The person did not receive a written report or anything like that. I wonder if this will be addressed in the new regulations. How can we really say the vehicle roadworthiness issue has been addressed without doing that? It is very important that we examine this.

My main point is with regard to penalty points. There is no point in adding a plethora of other offences to be covered by penalty points if the system we have has a big question mark over it. The dogs on the street know it has. Perhaps it was a verbal error on the part of Deputy Ellis when he said 4,000 tickets were terminated.

The Comptroller and Auditor General demonstrated that over 40,000 tickets were terminated in a period of a year and a half. The amount identified in the Garda report was approximately 66,000 - for a longer period of time. As the Minister for Justice and Equality said earlier, some of those terminations could be easily explained - some related to tax discs on vehicles which had transferred ownership or the driver could not be identified - but some could not.

It is appalling to see the numbers of terminations of points involved relating to commercial vehicles revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report today. Problems in this regard were identified in the penalty points system six, seven or eight years ago. Obviously, we cannot impose penalty points on a company. Penalty points must be applied to an individual. Therefore, there is a requirement to make companies accountable for saying who is driving their vehicle when a traffic offence occurs. So many tickets are written off due to cases not being pursued, summonses not being issued and summonses remaining unpaid. Approximately 75% of the summonses issued on commercial vehicles remained unpaid and were never pursued. This is the inverse of the scenario with regard to ordinary drivers' penalty points. If we want to deal with the issue of road safety, we must deal with the issue of drivers of commercial vehicles and this must be addressed immediately in legislation. It strikes me as timely and fortunate that this legislation is being introduced today, alongside the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and I suggest the Minister could factor in some standards in this regard.

What is the Minister's view with regard to the need to have an independent assessment of this situation. We now have a number of reports which reveal huge discrepancies. Deputy Shatter's comments earlier were correct in part, when he said assistant commissioner O'Mahony's report revealed levels of terminations of approximately 5%, roughly akin to the figure revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. However, the Deputy's attempt to move on and dismiss that as hardly relevant does not stand up to the facts behind the 5% figure, which means there are tens of thousands of terminations. Hundreds of terminations relate to vehicles caught for points on multiple occasions, including at least three members of the Judiciary in this category. There is a problem with our penalty points system if members of the Judiciary who benefit from having penalty points terminated then sit in our courts adjudicating on the cases of others. There is a strong body of legal argument to suggest that anybody who is convicted on the word of a garda who gave that judge the termination could have their penalty points and fines quashed because of the unlawfulness of that interference.

To my mind, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Varadkar, was correct in his call - at the time the original O'Mahony report and the GPSU report came out - to insist that they dictated the need for an independent inquiry. I think that still stands. The Minister for Justice and Equality was wrong when he stated earlier that Members of this House - I think he was talking about me - said the new criteria were only a replication of what existed before. I did not say that. What l said was that a whole number of measures in the report reiterated protocols which already existed, but that is not the full picture. It was already unlawful for officers to terminate tickets outside their districts, but lots of them did it. It was already unlawful for them to do so without a written request and without a paper trail, but they did it and did so on numerous occasions. It was unlawful for them to do it without an excuse, but they did.

Some of the new measures which restrict the access officers have to the system are welcome. The provision of an audit is welcome. However, the question must be asked as to whether the political will exists to say these criteria will be implemented when previous criteria were not. We can only judge that by the people doing the implementing. Without being personal about it, the Garda Commissioner and the assistant commissioner have systematically sought to minimise this problem, saying it is not a cultural problem nor a systemic problem. Basically, they put it down to a little bit of inadequate accounting. That is not what this is. This problem is rooted in the current system.

I see a problem if we bring in new criteria and toughen up rules- I welcome that these rules exist now - and brazenly pass over what has happened as if these criteria and rules are just a good idea being brought in now, rather than as being brought in based on evidence given to the Minister by two whistleblowers, one of whom has lost his job and the other who cannot conduct his job. There is a problem if these are the only ones penalised in this situation. How can this moderate the behaviour of other gardaí in this regard? The Comptroller and General's report revealed that while these terminations were not widespread around the country, they were located in areas that can be pinpointed, areas like Ennis, the top area for termination of penalty points. Other areas terminated 50 times the amount that happened in Birr. That is not natural. There was obviously something odd going on and it was not that gardaí in Birr could not identify driver offences.

Action must be taken. Otherwise, the signal the Minister is giving is that we do not acknowledge that any wrong was done, but we have dreamt up this new system and will not acknowledge the past. People must put their hands up on this situation. They must take responsibility for what they stood over. That responsibility rests primarily on the shoulders of the leadership of An Garda Síochána, who have not acquitted themselves well in this. Contrary to what the Minister for Justice and Equality stated here today - he had a bad day today with a number of inaccuracies in his comments - the whistleblowing gardaí did not refuse to co-operate with the investigation. The whistleblowing gardaí were never asked to co-operate with it. Subsequently, while they were being disciplined in a letter from the Garda Commissioner, they were told that if they had anything to add, they could give it to assistant commissioner O'Mahony. That is not being asked to participate in an investigation. The Minister was completely wrong in that regard.

I welcome the changes that have been made to this system, but they are not enough. There are many unanswered questions, not least the fact that two vulnerable people have been left exposed, in breach of whistleblowing legislation. Those who stood over the hounding and persecution of those people, whose contribution led us to a situation of improved regulations, must be made pay for that and be accountable for their actions. We want a transparent and safe system so that everybody knows that if they go out and speed, they will not get away with it on a nod and a wink because they are connected to the Garda or because their relation is a garda. In order to do this and restore confidence, we need an independent investigation.

I would like the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to comment on whether that is still his attitude. I agree with that demand and disagree strongly with the points made by Garda Commissioner Callinan, who said there is not a culture in this regard. The facts imply otherwise.

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