Tom Morrissey (Progressive Democrats)

I congratulate the Minister for Transport on his performance in regard to road safety. His initiative in bringing in penalty points has been an outstanding success. It has saved lives and prevented injuries. It has made our roads safer for all those who use them. The introduction of penalty points is an excellent example of Government working for the people. Many people put forward various arguments as to why it could not be done, or why it could not be done yet, but the Minister persevered. He took a tough decision in the right direction.

Penalty points were initially introduced for speeding offences. They are now being extended to cover other offences such as not wearing seat belts. The sooner they are extended to cover the whole range of offences that cause accidents the better. It is particularly important to bring drink driving offences within the scope of the penalty points system. Together with excessive speed, drink driving is the major reason our road safety record is so bad. There has been some change in attitude to drink driving over the past ten years or so but we still have a long way to go. It is remarkable that we can get worked up about the health dangers, real or imagined, from things like mobile phone masts and incinerators, yet all over the country people are still driving around our roads with dangerous levels of alcohol in their system. A complete change of attitude is needed. I hope that penalty points can help to bring that about.