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

Banned drivers are involved in between 11 and 14 deaths every year, and 500 banned drivers were involved in serious crashes in a two-year period in the middle of this decade. The Minister's figures are incredibly stark. Before Christmas, the Road Safety Authority, RSA, told me that in 2016 the number of drivers with a court disqualification was 8,296; driver licences surrendered amounted to only 1,035; the number of drivers with penalty point disqualifications was 1,054; and the driver licences surrendered numbered only 476. The figures for 2017 were very similar, with 9,449 court disqualifications and a similar number of refusals to surrender licences. The last figures the Minister gave me, up to September of last year, present a similarly dire situation. We have heard about the handheld devices and I note the comments the Commissioner, Drew Harris, made to the Committee of Public Accounts about the list of policing priorities for 2019, which I welcome. Can we see some real action on this?

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