Results 5,641-5,660 of 26,021 for speaker:Kieran O'Donnell
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Is Dr. Bedford surprised it is a small number?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: This is something on which we have to do further work. We will come back to it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Is there a higher concentration in the tests?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: You can openly smell it. It is quite prevalent.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: I ask Dr. Bedford to explain that.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Is that in other countries?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: On a slightly unrelated point, did the Medical Bureau of Road Safety detect heroine in any of the blood samples it took in drug drive testing?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: So very few of them tested positive.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: I just had a look at one of the statistics in the Medical Bureau of Road Safety annual report for 2020. It states that in 30% of the 4,489 tests it did people had more than one drug in their systems. Some 2,241 tests were positive for one drug but 1,409, over 30%, were positive for two drugs in their systems. I presume that is outside of alcohol.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Are there any statistics that show where people had both alcohol and drugs in their systems?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Did the Medical Bureau of Road Safety recommend to the Department that it should increase the fines where there is more than one drug found in a test, be it a combination of drugs or alcohol? Did it recommend the use of interlocks?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Have they gone into the-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Does Senator Horkan wish to come in?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Dr. Bedford has been a surprise. I mean that in the nicest possible way and in terms of wealth of information.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: This is something we are going to follow up on. He has been very interactive. As a committee, we have made a general point regarding the role of chairpersons designate. That is a separate issue from our engagement with Dr. Bedford. I have read the annual report and Dr. Bedford is a key cog in the area of road safety so we will be following up with him.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: The Senator was double-tasking. That is good to hear.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: We will probably do some structured follow-up work with the CEO of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety as well. We on the committee are legislators and these matters are being brought up with us on the ground. We are probably all members of joint policing committees. One of the updates we get every month is from the chief superintendent in our area. In my case, in Limerick, I am tracking...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: The Senator may ask a brief question. We have time.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Could we ask Dr. Bedford to go back to his board to see whether the preliminary results for 2021 could be published now? It would feed into the development of public policy and into how we look at matters as legislators and as a committee. We wish Dr. Bedford continued success in his role and thank him for his work as a public health specialist over many decades. We will write to the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Medical Bureau of Road Safety: Chairperson Designate (25 May 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: I thank Dr. Bedford for assisting the committee today. We will now take a short break before this afternoon's second session, which will be with Mr. Conal Henry, chair designate of Shannon Group.