Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

In light of newspaper reports this morning about the Garda intention to roll out the lo-call informer telephone service, with which those in the south east will be familiar and which the rest of the country will now experience, I ask the Leader to get assurances from the Garda Commissioner and from the political master, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, that this scheme will not be abused. I fully accept that the noble aspiration behind it is to reduce speeding and, ultimately, to save lives, but the human condition does not always subscribe to theory. Those of us who travel the roads of Ireland will testify that as the road structure improves and speed increases, the safest roads are motorways. However, there are motorists who, for some strange reason or because of some peculiar approach to driving, believe they own the road and that nobody can pass them by, even if they are doing 40 miles per hour. Will such people make telephone calls and clog up the telephone lines with nuisance calls, begrudgery or envy? I raise the matter because I was the subject of such a call two years ago when in a city in the south east, although it was not a driver who complained but a passenger.