Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In opening this debate I wish to acknowledge, first, the progress made in the winter gritting programme across the country over many years and especially the outdoor staff who work ungodly hours to deliver the gritting programme, which is often and mainly dictated by local authority officials and budgets. As the Minister, Deputy Ross, rightly knows, ice and snow bring a Christmas thrill but not to many motorists, cyclists or pedestrians for whom icy conditions are a time of anxiety for many people who go about their business, often in scary driving conditions. The Minister might pardon the pun but any public representative worth his or her salt would tell him that, apart from the public complaints about potholes and poor road surfaces, at this time of the year as temperatures plummet many become justifiably frustrated. Constituents call our offices complaining about there been no salting of the roads, not to mention the irate parents who often ring to say their child has just written off his or her first car.

My purpose in raising this matter in the season that is in it is to hope that winter gritting programme would be publicised more widely in terms of how it works and to make road users more aware of how it operates and to offer an exchange in terms of the ways in which the programme could be improved and expanded to be responsive and more impactful in the interests of safer driving with fewer accidents and a more co-ordinated approach and understanding of the way local authorities can respond.

The IceCast system, as I described it, is now known as the Vaisala road DSS manager – it is difficult for people to get their tongue around that. One can call it what one likes but all we need to know is that there is an effective and efficient system and that the road user who pays his or her motor tax, property tax and income tax achieves equity in reaching his or her destination in the shortest possible time on the most suitable salted route. The aim of the programme is to keep the major routes as free as possible from hazardous road conditions but with the current process, which involves weather forecasting in terms of the Vaisala system I referred to, the system is only 85% effective.

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