Jim McDaid (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

The two Senators who have spoken so far have provided us with some interesting statistics and debate. I am very pleased to address the House on a subject that has an importance and a resonance for all our citizens. Road safety and the need to promote a more precautionary attitude to the use of our roads has finally achieved the level of public and political attention it merits. The advancement of that attention can be attributed in no small measure to the regular and informed debates in which this House has engaged in respect of road safety in recent years.

Those debates have also helped to focus political attention specifically on the pursuit by Government of the road safety strategy, which it launched in 1997. The strategy represented the first venture by any Government into the development and pursuit of an integrated, strategic approach to road safety. This motion allows me to account for our stewardship, and it is appropriate that I should do so now that we have come to the end of the period encompassed by the strategy.