Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Bill is probably well meant, but the reality is that we need to start in ensuring the safety of quad bikes and scramblers by getting the manufacturers to place safety roll bars on them. The statistics for the numbers of injuries and deaths show that, unfortunately, a lot of the incidents involving these vehicles occur in farmers' fields when they turn over. Those involved who may have been driving them for a long time may lose a limb or be killed. Therefore, we need to make sure the manufacturers place safety roll bars on them.

In this country we think we can give the Garda every job in the world to do and that it will solve everything. In fairness, when numbers in the Garda traffic corps have been brought down from 1,100 to 570, they cannot be everywhere. If a garda finds someone using one of these vehicles on the road, in a lot of cases the quad bike has not been licensed for road use. That is the first point. The Garda can take the necessary steps to deal with that issue. I am open to correction, but my understanding of the Bill is that we are moving more to include use in parks. We need to be careful when legislating to avoid including private property. I understand fully, however, that we need to tighten the legislation where these vehicles are used up and down roads. In fairness, they are used down the country for the right purposes such as bringing cows from one place to another. The vehicles have indicator and other lights on them and are roadworthy. We need to concentrate first on the safety measures required to save lives. I would be wary in going down the road of enforcing laws in parks and other such places.

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