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

I am delighted to have a brief opportunity to comment on this. It is unusual procedure. In my time in the House, I think I might have only seen it on one other occasion. A whole range of important measures that are necessary to improve road safety have been introduced in this country. It could be said that the Minister should have brought these issues before us in a more comprehensive consolidated Bill on Second Stage and then brought them to the committee. The reality is that as of yesterday, 49 people have tragically died in road traffic collisions so far this year, I think just two fewer than this time last year. While the 2017 figures were lower than those of the previous year, with 159 fatalities in 2017 compared with 187 in 2016, there are still far too many families and friends left totally devastated week after week and month after month because of injuries and deaths sustained in serious road traffic collisions.

There is a sense of déjà vuhere because we thought, with the 2016 Act, that we had addressed the major amendments here, which are referred to as the Clancy amendments. I was looking back at the 2016 Act earlier, specifically section 39, which I think was proposed by Deputy Munster to achieve legal certainty in respect of learner drivers. The Attorney General, presumably, and the Minister felt this was not legally watertight and that it could not be commenced. This means we have this sense today that we are going back over something we thought we had dealt with. I also note in the 2016 Bill that we tried to address the issue of rickshaws in this city, which is an ongoing controversial issue. It is there in the Bill. What is the practice in this regard? I know this is an unusual Dáil in that it passes a measure and then it is simply not commenced.

I of course welcome amendments concerning drink-driving and I hope the motion will lead to a reduction in the number of deaths and serious injuries on the road, especially in rural Ireland where, as my colleagues to my left know, alcohol is a factor in 81% of road traffic collisions. The Road Safety Authority has compiled data on alcohol's involvement in fatal crashes, which show that between 2008 and 2012, alcohol was a contributing factor in 38% of fatal crashes. Therefore, I believe that the attempts by my colleagues on the left of the House, Deputies Mattie McGrath, Danny Healy-Rae and others, to weaken the penalties for those caught drink-driving are the result of a misconception of these amendments and they must be rejected. If one looks back through the figures year after year, there is no question but that the approach the Minister is adopting is the correct one.

I welcome the European Commission's recent road safety statistics, which show that Irish roads are now the fifth safest in the EU at 33 per 1 million inhabitants and that the number dying on roads around Europe is decreasing, although the 2020 target apparently will not be achieved. Some 25,000 deaths are still happening year on year. The figures still show that around 70 people are dying day in, day out on EU roads. In the Gallery today we have some of the people whose lives have been altered forever due to fatal road traffic collisions. These are the real people behind the statistics. I know Ms Fiona Clancy is here with us tonight. She tragically lost her mother, Geraldine, and her sister, Louise, in a fatal collision with an unaccompanied learner driver. These are the people, those families and friends who are devastated, who we must remember. For this reason I believe that, although the approach may be unusual, the best way is to proceed and to bring the Clancy amendments finally into active law. As I said, we thought we had achieved this in the 2016 Act, and that gives us this sense of déjà vu.

Regarding the amendments and the 2016 Act - and the Minister might address this when he comes back - if the new learner driver laws are passed into law, whereby a vehicle driven by an unaccompanied learner driver will be seized by the Garda and the owner held liable, will the present law still stand whereby the unaccompanied learner, according to the 2016 law and earlier law, receives a fixed charge payment notice? This became a penalty point offence in the 2014 Act. Will the Minister assure us that there will not now be a loophole again whereby fixed charge payment notices, FCPNs, will not be issued where vehicles have been seized?

Looking at some of the issues on which, I hope, we will get a chance to speak in the hours ahead and tomorrow evening, it does make a strong case again for consolidation in order that we will not find ourselves in this kind of situation in the future. The Minister's predecessors, Deputy Varadkar and Deputy Donohoe, and now the Minister himself have all welcomed work which they said had started and was ongoing in respect of consolidation of traffic law. I think the Taoiseach told me one morning on Leaders' Questions that in areas such as company law and taxation law we have consolidated highly complex legislation and we then move on it year after year. There is therefore surely a case - and the debate tonight from all sides surely shows it again - for a strong consolidation of traffic law. Having said that, I am strongly in favour of proceeding with the Bill and allowing the Minister to bring forward these amendments, which would be a significant step forward for the safety of all road users in the future.

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