Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017. My colleagues in Sinn Féin and I will support it. The Bill is designed to change the penalty for those found to be driving with a blood alcohol level above 50 mg and below 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. This is already an offence and the penalty is a fine along with three penalty points. The Bill does not propose to change the legal limits for drinking and driving. Only the penalty will change. We support the Bill because it sends a message that drinking and driving is wrong, dangerous and unacceptable.

The State has a poor record of deaths on our roads. We have come a long way in the past decade in this regard. However, there has been a worrying trend in the past few years with the numbers of annual deaths due to road traffic accidents creeping up. One life lost on our roads is one too many. Sadly, over the past several years, the number of people dying on our roads has increased. There are many reasons for this, including poor roads, careless drivers, drink and drug driving and, perhaps most importantly, the slashing of the Garda Traffic Corps.

In recent years, drinking and driving has become less acceptable. We need to work towards a society where drinking and driving is universally condemned. We are not there yet. This was clear in recent months from the attitude of public representatives, most notably from Fianna Fáil Deputies and rural Deputies in other parties, including the Minister's Government colleagues. This Bill is another step towards that aim. Drinking and driving is reckless and dangerous, and should be recognised as such under the law. A punishment of three penalty points does not relay that message. A short suspension of a driving licence does.

Some Members have been jumping up and down over this Bill, claiming they are concerned about protecting rural Ireland. A Bill which seeks to impose harsher punishments on those caught drinking and driving is not an attack on rural life. Indeed, those most at risk of being killed in a collision where alcohol is a factor are those living in rural areas. I am sympathetic to those who live in rural and isolated regions of the State who do not have adequate access to transport links. It is an absolute disgrace and I have raised it on several occasions with the Minister. At the very least, 93,000 households do not have access to any public transport. There are parts of the State which do not have trains, public buses, local links or even a regular hackney or taxi service.

These problems do not mean we should fill in the gaps with drink drivers. It is worth repeating that the matter at hand, namely, being found with between 50 mg and 80 mg per 100 ml of blood is already an offence. Essentially, my colleagues are calling for the current situation where it would appear drink-driving in some areas is considered to be acceptable. It is never acceptable. If the current laws give the message that this is a reasonable situation, then we need to change them. The current penalty of three penalty points and a fine is apparently not getting the message across.

The Bill underwent pre-legislative scrutiny at the transport committee. That process was hijacked by some committee members, as well as non-committee members who oppose the legislation, in their attempt to discredit the evidence presented by the Road Safety Authority. Those on both sides of the argument appeared before the committee. The only interest groups who gave evidence against the legislation were vintners' groups. Their reason for having an interest in this is obvious. To my colleagues who claim they oppose these matters because of rural decline, if the best method they can come up with to address that issue is to argue that rural people should receive a softer punishment for drink-driving, then to be quite frank, I despair. We can do much better than that. The only reason I can think for Fianna Fáil's and others' opposition to this Bill is that it is politically popular to do so. We know Fianna Fáil will take whatever position is politically popular at the time and its position changes as soon as public opinion does.

It is quite disturbing that elected representatives care more about the votes of their constituents than they do about their lives or safety. We need to take a wider view of this. Politicians need to show leadership and do the right thing. There are many other measures which we can introduce to help people in rural areas. For years my party has called for an increase in spending on road maintenance in rural areas and expansion of the rural transport programme. The Bill is the only measure which the Minister has proposed, which is disappointing but not surprising. He needs to take an interest in rural Ireland, improving transport links and infrastructure. To date, he has shown no interest at all. Rural people are entitled to be able to travel safely and efficiently. These measures will not solve any of the problems faced by those who do not have access to adequate services. It may help to reduce drinking and driving, however.

The Minister might be smiling but the fact is that 93,000 of rural households do not have access to any form of public transport whatsoever. Bills like these are not the most pressing issue facing the Minister. A more cynical person might even consider this to be a diversionary tactic. The Minister has busied himself with this matter, along with judicial appointments, since he took office. We all can agree there are bigger issues facing the Minister. If he is concerned about road safety, his first port of call should be to invest in infrastructure. Our roads have been underfunded for the past decade. This means that essential maintenance and repairs have not happened. At the Committee of Public Accounts some weeks ago, Transport Infrastructure Ireland stated the deficit was approximately €100 million. If our roads are not safe, then the people using them are not. Investing in our roads would be beneficial to those living in rural areas and would make our roads safer for everybody.

I hope the Minister will take this matter seriously. When he first took office, he was told €3 billion was required to bring our roads to a steady-state condition. I have yet to see any significant movement on that. Over the past decade, personnel numbers in the Garda traffic corps have been halved.

The Minister announced that additional personnel would be added to the corps but the increase was pushed back to the end of this year. Can the Minister indicate the number of new gardaí have joined the corps in 2017? Has the 10% target been reached? Earlier in the year, he gave a commitment at a meeting of the transport committee that there would be a 10% increase in the number of gardaí in the corps. He pressed the issue in the latter part of the year. It is now November and Christmas is almost here. The usual road safety campaign will be rolled out for the Christmas period and things will go back to normal on 2 January. We do not only want optics this year. Can the Minister confirm whether he has yet allocated the 10% increase in the number of officers serving with the Garda Traffic Corps to which he committed?

In June of, there were 663 members of the corps. In 2007, there were 1,200. The Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, need to address that as a matter of urgency. All Members know how effective Christmas road safety plans are. They are successful because personnel and resources are deployed in respect of road safety for a period of weeks, with checkpoints, safety messages and advertisements to beat the band. If people know there is a good chance of coming across a Garda checkpoint, it is an effective deterrent to drink-driving and, therefore, an injection of resources into the traffic corps would ensure roads are safer for everybody. That makes common sense. I raised with the Minister on several occasions that there are places in County Louth and across the State in which many people make a deliberate choice to drink and drive in the full knowledge and comfort that there is no chance of their meeting a checkpoint on the road. They go from home to the pub and from the pub to home without ever coming across a Garda checkpoint and, therefore, there is no deterrent. I appeal to the Minister, if he is serious about the issue, to roll out measures not just for three weeks over Christmas but to have them sustained throughout the year because the Bill alone is not sufficient.

We still do not know the full truth of how the Garda breath test scandal came about or who was responsible. There has been no accountability whatsoever. Formulating legislation of this nature in a climate of what appears to be complete dysfunctionality is not ideal. To properly formulate legislation, we need access to correct information and data. At no stage have I heard the Minister put the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, under any pressure in a public arena to produce the data or, more importantly, to press for accountability and to hold those responsible for the scandal to account. It also appears that those who drafted the Bill did not have the data to hand.

Introducing harsher penalties at a time when there are very serious questions to be answered by the Garda in respect of breath tests is not ideal. However, despite the Minister's many failures, I accept that this does not fall under his remit but, rather, that of the Minister for Justice and Equality. I support the Bill and hope the Minister will take my comments on board when he considers future steps regarding road safety.

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