Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has many facts and statistics himself, which are very useful, and I do not have the same information as he does. I know he is concentrating on the subject and rightly so. The Department shares some of the Deputy's aims and it is trying to improve the information flow between it and the RSA. It is probably a matter of applying more urgency to this. The Deputy is correct that the more information we gather the more it can inform our thinking, policies and lawmaking. The main point is that we continue to try to drive down the number of fatalities. The Deputy is absolutely right that one is far too many, and to have 147, regardless of whether the number is increasing or decreasing, is still far too many. It onus is on all of us to try to do this.

The Deputy is correct that statistics and facts help focus our minds on it and help get the message out to people. If, when I am on the road, I park for ten minutes and watch, I often wonder how we do not have more fatalities because so many improvements can be made when it comes to driving. The onus is on all of us. None of us is innocent when it comes to driving 100% perfectly. It is about engineering and education, but it is also about attitude. This is something the Department of Education and Skills is working on, and I hope that junior cycle reform will provide opportunities to introduce new initiatives and programmes to educate young people in second level on the importance of having the right attitude when it comes to driving a vehicle, and on being aware of what is around them and thinking like an engineer. It is about understanding what it is like to drive a bus if one is a cyclist and vice versa. This is the understanding we must achieve. We all have a role in this. I will take what the Deputy has said to the Department of Education and Skills and I will feed back to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport the issues he has raised.

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