John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to first put on record my thanks to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for her kind remarks earlier in the debate on the Farrelly commission of investigation, which I appreciate very much.

The Bill before us deals with a number of different road traffic issues. There is a commentary in the explanatory memorandum on the changes in our use of vehicles of one kind or another and the use of public transport. I have to make a case for rural Ireland generally where there is no transport system and where people cannot get about efficiently within their own counties or region. That has to be changed and it will take considerable funding, but rural Ireland cannot be left out in respect of the changes that are coming because of climate change and for other reasons.

All legislation is informed by our interaction with constituents and by our own experiences. Some of those experiences relate to the courts, An Garda, insurance companies generally and so on. The Second Stage debate is an ideal time to discuss some of the issues and the legislation, and to ask for some joined-up thinking on it. A former Member of this House said to me that there is no point in all of us passing this legislation and putting the laws in place if we do not have sufficient manpower and capacity to deal with the policing of those laws. I believe firmly in that. There has to be a connection between this legislation, the experiences that some have had in road traffic accidents and the courts, and indeed, the insurance companies. The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach regularly deals with insurance companies and attempts in every way possible to bring down the premiums for motorists.

I would point as an example of complete failure of the system to the case of Shane O’Farrell, which has often been raised in this House and has all to do with a traffic accident, a hit and run, murder, one might call it, on the roadside and the devastation for a family. In fact, the previous Dáil decided that there should be a public inquiry into that case. When one examines the reasons for a broad well-meaning public inquiry, it has to do with how the courts function. If someone appears in court - and it is ten years since Shane O’Farrell’s death - is convicted of a crime and if that person is to be jailed, then one would expect that the law would ensure that person goes to jail for that particular crime. It is very difficult to understand in Shane O’Farrell’s case how the system dealt with numerous convictions in the courts against a man who eventually killed Shane on the roadside. He should have been in jail. There was a failure of the courts and of An Garda to implement the decision of the court. If this legislation is to change anything, it needs to interlink with the courts system to ensure that the likes of that oversight or error does not happen again.

Likewise, there needs to be a connection between North and South because, referring to Shane O’Farrell’s case, the conviction of the man involved related to numerous offences in 2011 in the Border area. We need to connect with the authorities in Northern Ireland to ensure that in future, should these road offences be committed, there is a flow of information between North and South. My understanding is that on one occasion, the man who killed Shane O’Farrell was to report to his local Garda station when, in fact, he was in jail in Northern Ireland. The questions have to be asked in the context of legislation: how did that happen and why? Will this legislation or any amendment that might be required to it be able to deal with that and with the relationship with the police Northern Ireland?

Likewise Part 4 introduces amendments relating to information about insurance. This goes back to the policing of the legislation. In Shane O’Farrell’s case, this man was stopped on the roadside, he was known to have had the various convictions, there was a question mark over the condition of the vehicle he was driving and whether it was roadworthy, tax and insurance, yet the vehicle was not taken from him, was not impounded and it seems as if there was no consequences in that regard. This Bill needs to address that by ensuring there will be consequences and that An Garda are empowered, or if they need to be further empowered, to take these types of vehicles and to impound them. I do not understand why that happened.

The other issue is the national car test certificate, as it was referred to. There was no certificate. We can have all of the laws and the indicators on the windscreen as to tax, insurance and so on, but if these matters are not policed, then we will not get the results that we want. If motorists are found by An Garda to have broken the law, we need to ensure that the Courts Service puts in place the proper tracking system so that the crime can be picked up and the person who might be sentenced goes to jail and is taken off the road to prevent the type of accidents that killed Shane O’Farrell.

I am using that case because so many things went wrong on the part of the State in it, even in the Director of Public Prosecution's, DPP's, office.

This legislation should look at how, for example, that man who killed Shane O’Farrell got the type of legal representation that he received. How did that man get the type of favourable consideration in the court that he got-----

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