Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the end of August of this year, working in collaboration with Ms Susan Gray and the PARC road safety group, I received a reply from the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, to my Parliamentary Question No. 511 of 14 July. The reply detailed by district court the number of persons listed and convicted and licence numbers recorded for drink driving offences between January 2013 and May 2015. Ms Susan Gray and PARC have done and, indeed, continue to do Trojan work in the area of road safety, highlighting loopholes in our legislation and the failure to implement our traffic laws. It was through representations by PARC and its analysis of the figures that we uncovered the shocking level of drink driving prosecutions not resulting in convictions as highlighted by The Irish Timesthis week. Of the 20,000 plus cases listed between January 2013 and May 2015, just 8,391, or 40%, received a conviction while a minuscule 1,647, or 20%, had their licence details recorded in court. County Offaly had the highest rate of convictions at 68%, County Kerry had the lowest at 29% and 21 out of the 26 counties had lower than 50% conviction rates. These figures are unacceptable and compare very badly with our UK and other EU neighbours. The UK has a 97% conviction rate for drink driving prosecutions.

The response of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, to the media in light of these worrying figures was that his Department's officials had begun work on consolidating our comprehensive Road Traffic Acts. I remember asking the Minister about this previously and he told me in reply to Parliamentary Question No. 611 on the 24 January:

As I indicated to the House in December last, I propose to begin the process of consolidating road traffic legislation this year. A considerable amount of work is involved in this exercise involving as it does the examination and review of all primary and secondary legislation going back to 1961.

He re-iterated that the work would commence this year, but we are still waiting. This type of behaviour by the Government in kicking the can down the road has become commonplace in a range of policy areas including housing, health care, Irish Water and, now, the safety of road users in Ireland. Yet another example of this was the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and, specifically, its Minister misleading the Dáil on the issue of breathalyzer test reports being produced and presented in both English and Irish. A month ago, Mr. Justice Seamus Noonan ruled in the High Court ruled that these reports must be provided in both languages. On 24 March of this year, however, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in response to concerns of PARC and myself, reassured me in a reply to Parliamentary Question No. 984 on this very issue. I had asked him to amend Statutory Instrument No. 541 of the Road Traffic Act 2011 to close any possible loophole. He said, "I am satisfied following consultation with the Garda that there is no requirement to change the Road Traffic Act 2010 to make amendments of the kind suggested by the Deputy". Yet, six months after this statement, a High Court judge disagreed with his interpretation of the law. It is unfortunate that the Minister is not here to take part in this debate. It is clear he misled the Dáil. The Acting Chairman is a senior parliamentarian and will agree that he should come to the House and correct the record. He misled the Dáil.

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