Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to put on record my support for this initiative by my constituency colleague, Deputy Dooley, which is an important and serious initiative to make the roads safer. There is a degree of public cynicism, to which I will return, regarding some of the initiatives that have been taken by successive Governments in the name of road safety. However, I believe the proposal in Deputy Dooley's Bill would be supported by the great majority and I am glad to note the Minister has accepted some of the proposals Deputy Dooley has brought to the House this morning, particularly that of increasing the penalty for leaving the scene of an accident. No one can really state that leaving the scene of an accident is not a serious offence, and it must be treated as such in the Statute Book. As the current penalties in place for leaving the scene of an accident are insufficient, I thank Deputy Dooley for highlighting that and I support him in this regard.

There is an increasing amount of public cynicism, particularly with regard to speed cameras and their location. I accept that they may have been rolled out in the name of making roads safer but there is a public perception that the increased number of locations at which such speed cameras have been placed has more to do with raising revenue for the State in times of economic need than with making roads safe. While this may not be the case, the Minister should take the opportunity to dispel such cynicism that is afforded by the upcoming road traffic Bill to which he alluded earlier. When the Bill is debated in this House, he should, for each site in which speed cameras have been placed, outline the basis for their installation - that is, that such sites have been the location of accidents in the past. I must state anecdotally that in looking at some of the places where such speed cameras have been installed, one can see they are not necessarily all places where one would imagine accidents would readily happen. There is a degree of shooting fish in a barrel if one goes out with a speed gun on the Naas Road, as perhaps the only achievement of the Celtic tiger was the establishment of the motorway system leading out of Dublin, and people who travel on it are sometimes being subjected to speed cameras. While I also welcome the Minister's review of speed limits on rural roads, I question whether that might not also be extended to some of the arterial routes out of Dublin and the speed limits that apply thereon, even between the city centre at the airport.

However, I reiterate my support for Deputy Dooley and his proposals. I greatly welcome the Minister's acceptance of these proposals in the spirit in which they were made, namely, as a non-partisan effort to increase road safety and to tackle what are real issues, because sometimes one can get lost on the peripheral issues and fail to tackle the more important issues. This proposal by Deputy Dooley very much tackles the real issues.

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