James Bannon (Fine Gael)

That association, the National Safety Council and the National Council on Ageing and Older People have launched a joint safety campaign to highlight the existence of a danger zone or blind spot around HGVs. Their valid contention is that if a person cannot see the driver of such a vehicle, the driver cannot see the person.

According to the National Safety Council, there was a total of 3,360 fatal, serious and minor injury collisions between 1998 and 2002 involving HGVs and pedestrians. Of these, 10% resulted in fatalities and 20% in serious injury. Older pedestrians are more likely to suffer fatal or serious injury in a collision with a HGV. The three organisations involved are calling on HGV manufacturers to fit special mirrors on all new cabs to eliminate the driver's blind spot. That problem must be examined, even in terms of other vehicles on our roads. Hauliers and fleet managers are also being asked to fit these mirrors, and I am aware hauliers are complying with that request.

Regarding Dublin's public transport network, the Government has produced five separate blueprints to consider its improvement. While it was compiling those, the number of cars in Dublin reached 720,000 in early 2003, which was the projected number for 2016. As we all know, traffic congestion in the city is costing in the region of €650 million annually. That is a problem about which we have heard many promises. The only Minister for Transport in recent years to move to solve that problem was the Leader of this House, Senator O'Rourke, when she was Minister. We have only heard promises from the Minister of State; he has not yet delivered.

Fine Gael has called for a number of measures to rectify our transport problems, including speedy implementation of the full range of penalty points. Out of a total of 69 offences, four have so far been introduced. We have called for a penalty points system to include offences to tackle drug driving, which is currently not tested by gardaí. We have been told by people who have witnessed accidents that many speed-related offences are committed by people on drugs. The Minister of State must get on top of this because more than drink is involved in many late night deaths.

We also call for the establishment of a new Dublin transport authority and reform of the national speed limits before the introduction of up to 50 new speed cameras. The Government missed an opportunity with the move from miles to kilometres per hour. Local authorities are up in arms because the elected members were not consulted. In County Longford they are reviewing the speed limits today and the introduction of new speed limits will cause an extra burden on the taxpayer.