Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The Minister is to be complimented for introducing the penalty points system. Without any particular finger-pointing at the Government, why does it take so long to implement measures which prove so effective? The obvious example is the plastic bag levy, which took five years to introduce. I am not being political about this, but we seem to be so slow in terms of achieving an end.

In a country which expressed the wish to become the leader in the world of e-commerce – this implied it would put together a sophisticated telecommunications and data transfer network – the job of computerising driving licence records, in order that the points system could operate in the most efficient fashion, is apparently still beyond us. It is being done essentially as a paper exercise, using something close to what people call "snail" mail. I do not blame the Department for this, it is our inability to do things in an orderly and reasonably speedy fashion. We seem to be particularly good at proceeding slowly when building roads, planning, etc. It is time we worked out what is wrong with the systems we employ.

I compliment the Minister on the points system, but I am uneasy about what will happen in the medium term. For reasons we need not discuss, I have had to do a considerable amount of driving over the past three months. I do not normally drive much at this time of year, but I have had to drive from Cork to Dublin recently. There is no doubt that the penalty points system has acted as a considerable deterrent to ordinary motorists. However, I am beginning to pick up slight signs that that deterrence is beginning to wear off. I have travelled the road from Cork to Dublin and back at least 20 times in the last two and a half months. I have not seen a single Garda speed check on one of the busiest roads in this country which I have travelled on at various times during the week and at weekends.