Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I second the motion and I thank Senator Browne for raising this matter again. I welcome the Minister of State to the House.

Over the past month, there have been repeated calls in the House for a debate on the issue of road safety. My party colleagues decided to use our Private Members' time to give the House an opportunity to debate the strategy, if it can be called that, in place and to analyse the Government's performance in achieving the goals agreed on a cross-party basis in 1998.

Despite early successes following the introduction of penalty points, the trend has been in the opposite direction in the most appalling way. The House, which has a good record on debating this issue, needs to take ownership of this issue again as we head into the Christmas period to make sure the clear strategy set out in 1998, which has since been updated, is implemented.

The annual national survey of motorists' behaviour and attitudes was published yesterday and I read it this morning with dismay. Unbelievably appalling statistics come from that survey of just over 1,000 drivers. One in eight drivers has fallen asleep at the wheel because of his or her hectic lifestyle. Motorists are comfortable with flouting the law because they feel they will not be caught by gardaí. Driver behaviour has worsened in the past 12 months. The only thing that will stop the 1,000 drivers surveyed from continuing to break the law is more enforcement. When penalty points were introduced there was a dramatic reduction in road fatalities and injuries in the first three months, a trend which has since been reversed. Some 44% drove after drinking and half of those had three or more drinks.

From this basic survey we can see that the Government's strategy to which we signed up is not working. Both Houses must revisit the implementation of that strategy and ensure that much more is done on the kind of issue Senator Browne raised to try to reduce road fatalities and injuries.

I will concentrate on random breath testing. I note the Government amendment includes the following, "That Seanad Éireann notes the ongoing efforts of the Minister for Transport, together with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Attorney General, to extend the basis for roadside breath testing". The Government first announced that it would move on this issue in 1998 and seven years later we have a Government amendment that notes the "ongoing efforts". What efforts? If there are constitutional difficulties, let us hear about them. Let us have it upfront rather than this nonsensical ping pong game between the Taoiseach, who said one thing and the Minister for Transport, who said something quite different in the space of 24 hours last week. I have changed my mind on the issue of random breath testing because I have examined the international evidence and seen that random breath testing elicits a significant change in drink driving. It is time we moved away from platitudes such as appear in the Government's amendment towards the kind of implementation that was promised in 1998.

One of the reasons I have changed my mind on random breath testing is that the evidence from countries such as New Zealand, Australia, France, Finland and Belgium is incontrovertible. Where random breath testing is introduced there is a dramatic causal reduction in the number of fatalities as a result of drink driving. We must move quickly towards a situation where random breath testing will happen. We also have the opportunity to reduce the allowable blood alcohol level, which is still high by comparison with western European standards. After Finland's 25 year campaign, drink driving as a reason for fatalities represents less than 1% of the total number of people killed on the roads. In New South Wales, Australia, random breath testing was introduced in 1982. Drink driving caused 32 deaths in the first quarter of 1981, before random breath testing was introduced, compared with eight deaths in the first quarter of 1982, after it was introduced. Similar evidence has come from New Zealand and France. The attitude to this issue has changed. People are fed up that we cannot make the progress that was clearly needed in 1998.

I wish to speak on penalty points North and South. I am a member of the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body and with Lord Alf Dubbs produced a report two years ago asking both Governments to move immediately to the mutual recognition of penalty points north and south of the Border. From the evidence of fatalities, speeding and road-related injuries on the North-South roads that traverse the Border, in particular the Dublin-Belfast road, it is clear that poor driver behaviour is related to the fact that no penalties can be imposed on people. We must immediately move to a situation where a Northern Irish driver who commits an offence on our roads has penalty points attached to his or her licence and vice versa. The British say they do not even have mutual recognition within the United Kingdom but I believe there is no reason mutual recognition between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland cannot be introduced tomorrow because that is where people are driving and where the danger exists. I ask the Government to continue its efforts in this area, which is a huge contributing factor to the number of deaths on our roads.