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

That is fine. I am sharing time with Deputy Thomas Pringle.

I warmly welcome this opportunity to speak on this long-awaited Bill. I acknowledge that the Minister made time, soon after being appointed, to meet a number of important civil society stakeholders who promote road safety, in particular, Ms Susan Gray and Ms Anne Fogarty and other representatives of Promoting Awareness, Responsibility and Care on Our Roads, PARC, a great civil society group. I also acknowledge the recent decision of the Garda Commissioner to scrap fees for abstracts and statements for families who have been bereaved by road traffic collisions. A number of Deputies and the PARC organisation had campaigned for this change for a decade.

Many of us have been waiting for this Bill to be brought before the House. Finally, we will have legislation in place to address drug driving and close the loophole which arose when the mutual recognition of disqualified drivers agreement between Ireland and the United Kingdom lapsed. During my time as an Opposition spokesperson on transport, I pleaded with a number of the Minister's predecessors, on perhaps 30 occasions at Question Time, to introduce a model of testing for drugs and follow the example of States such as Victoria in Australia which embarked on the invigilation of drivers in respect of drugs 15 or 20 years ago. The Minister referred to the three key drugs involved. The question is why it has taken so long to address this issue. The safety of people on roads is the key responsibility of the Minister and, as such, I welcome the fact that this Bill has finally been introduced to the House.

The Bill also provides for the reduction of speed limits to include 20 km/h zones. Deputies will remember the debate we had on Jake's law which arose from the tragedy of little Jake Brennan. We tried to introduce legislation to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable citizens, including older people, in housing estates. As a member of Dublin City Council for 12 years, I called for the introduction of home zones many times. This concept, which was piloted in the Netherlands, involves the designation of certain areas in cities where very low speed limits would apply. At that time, we sought a 25 km/h restriction in all housing estates.

The Bill includes a number of other amendments to the Road Traffic Acts dating from 1961 onwards.

It is important to note the purpose of the Bill is to improve road safety and reduce fatalities and serious injuries. While there has been a significant improvement in the number of fatalities on our roads, and 2012 had a low of 162, we have recently seen the worrying trend of numbers of deaths increasing, with all of the incredible tragedy that brings to families, the removal of citizens from society and the associated costs. Of course, one life lost on our roads is one too many. Distressingly, as of 27 September, the number of fatalities was 23 higher than last year, at 138 compared to 115 at the same point in 2015.

The Minister, Deputy Ross, is the person on the deck and he has the responsibility to see how that may be addressed, in conjunction with the RSA. I believe a major focus of RSA campaigns should be on speeding. What we are doing in this Bill is important, as is what we did in the past to discourage drink driving, the use of mobile phones and so on. However, speeding seems to be the essential issue that results in horrendous deaths and casualties. The RSA has mounted some very effective campaigns recently to protect motor cyclists and pedestrians, but the emphasis should be on speeding. The statistics for the west of the country, from Kerry to Donegal, have been shocking for many years, which is something we have to address.

Despite such high numbers, it is striking a judge recently gave a bachelor farmer from Kerry time to find a woman to drive him around before his ban for driving while intoxicated came into effect. Such jokey comments about drink driving and dangerous driving are totally inappropriate, and this culture has to be changed. As I said to the Minister at a previous Question Time, I believe the Courts Service has been deficient in regard to enabling us to collate the information we in the House need to know, and the Minister needs to know, in order to make our roads safer.

I note the stand the Minister took today on the judicial appointments Bill. I applaud this as I believe it is the direction the House needs to take in order that the best possible people are appointed to the bench in a transparent and independent manner. Some of the things we hear in the District Court are very disrespectful in regard to the ongoing litany of tragedy on our roads. Earlier in the summer, a man whose blood alcohol reading was 198 mg per 100 ml, which is almost four times over the limit, and who had previously pleaded guilty to drink driving in 2014, was granted an adjournment of his driving ban until 8 December. Earlier this month, there was a case where a driver who had nine life bans for driving without insurance was jailed for just five months and given a small fine for breaking the law repeatedly in a most profound way.

The Bill will provide for the changing of the name of the mandatory alcohol testing - the MAT checkpoints - to mandatory intoxicant testing - the MIT checkpoints. Figures I have received in response to previous parliamentary questions I raised on this issue with the Minister and his predecessor, and the Minister for Justice and Equality, show there were 78,000 MATs in 2014 and 59,000 up to the end of September 2015. However, there has been a concern among citizens that the number of checkpoints has been decreasing due to the fall in the number of gardaí and, in particular, the dramatic fall in the number in the Garda traffic corps and the fact the traffic corps is not given the specific, 24-7, role of protecting our citizens on the roads. It is important to ensure accurate reporting and the Bill reflects this. The new MITs indicate how many tests are conducted for alcohol only or for drugs only, or for both. Research carried out by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety showed that of 1,158 specimens, 58% tested positive for at least one type of drug and, of this figure, 70% was for cannabis.

Since January 2015 there has been no mutual recognition of driver disqualifications between Ireland and the UK. Up to December 2014 we had an agreement under the European convention on driver disqualifications but the UK then opted out of the convention when it was moved to the jurisdiction of the European Court. While a bilateral agreement was reached on 30 October 2015, it could not be placed on a statutory footing without legislation. Again, the Minister is to be commended that, at long last, we have reached this milestone. It is unfortunate that an impasse of over a year and a half arose, and I raised this with the Minister's predecessor many times. Given the Brexit result, the closing of this loophole is of even greater importance.

What is the impact of section 18, which amends section 38(1) of the 2010 Act? While section 38 has not yet been commenced, when will this important section be commenced and when will the third payment option be introduced? I note the legislative programme which we received today from the Chief Whip states that the courts (fixed charge notice, third payment option and summons printing) Bill, which was listed for pre-legislative scrutiny before the summer recess, is to be published before Christmas. The Minister might confirm that it will be published before the end of this session. What is its status and what is the timeframe for bringing it to the House? The Bill is listed on the priority list for publication and I hope this will happen.

I presume this minority Government has made a collective decision that it will finally, in the coming 12 weeks, start to legislate seriously. We have lived through a different era since the general election but there are so many important Bills on that programme, including Bills that have not reached the pre-legislative stage, that we need to see action from the Government to produce legislation.

That amendment concerning fixed charge notices was requested by the Director of Public Prosecutions due to the number of persons in court claiming they had not received their fixed charge notices. Some people say this charade is still going on, that people can still make this claim and very little can be done, and that offences are then struck out. If this Bill is not passed and enacted before the Road Traffic Bill, how will the Minister ensure there are not further delays in enacting section 44? Statistics have shown that many drivers before the courts on penalty points offences such as speeding and holding a mobile telephone while driving are avoiding conviction and application of penalty points in court by claiming non-receipt of the fixed charge notice.

With regard to section 44, on the third payment option, we know there was a disagreement between the Garda and the Courts Service in regard to the operation of this measure due to the inadequate IT systems of both bodies. The Minister might tell us whether those two critical IT systems are now upgraded, whether there has been financial support for this and whether we will begin to get the flow of statistics that governments and road safety organisations in other jurisdictions seem to have. It is notable the British Government has apparently decided to double penalty points from three to six points for drivers using a mobile telephone while driving. This initiative will mean the loss of a driving licence for learner drivers in the UK who infringe the law in this way. What is the Minister's view on this? There was an increase in that penalty point category fairly recently. It is striking the UK authorities, in making this decision, seem to have very detailed information on the role of mobile telephone use by drivers in causing serious crashes on British roads.

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