Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the motion. I thank my party colleague, Senator Browne, for tabling it. It is a significant national issue but I find it difficult to get away from the parochial aspect of the negative experiences we have had in County Donegal in the past few months, specifically in Inishowen where five young people lost their lives tragically in a car accident. When trying to highlight the issue, we talk in terms of the statistics which are escalating. I want to put on record the human impact of such a tragedy whereby five young people's lives have been lost tragically, for which nothing can compensate. One cannot describe what the immediate families went through as a result of this tragedy. Nothing can compensate for the impact it had on the Garda and emergency services personnel who arrived at the scene and had to deal with the accident and the consequences and impact on the Inishowen community at large.

As Inishowen is a very close-knit community, the people are still reeling from the effects of this tragedy. Following the car crash, my colleague, Councillor Bernard McGuinness and I had a meeting with Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn. It was an important meeting because the superintendent highlighted the human impact of such a tragedy. She told us of the impact it had on the bereaved family members, with whom she was directly involved, on herself and on her Garda colleagues. She said that if there was a debate on the issue in the Seanad, she would like to have some form of communication with Members. Therefore, I welcome the fact that she sent a representative, Garda Brendan Roche, to represent her during the debate. This is how serious Garda personnel take the debate on road safety. While it might be easy to criticise the Garda in regard to the numbers of road deaths, it is important to put on record that it is very interested in moving forward on the issue.

The superintendent said that she would welcome more involvement on the part of local authorities. She would welcome a partnership approach in this regard, which was referred to earlier in the House. I believe we are all singing from the same hymn sheet in this regard. The local authorities, as a statutory mechanism, can play a pivotal role in terms of combatting dangerous and reckless driving either in urban or rural areas.

Approximately 40,000 people live in Inishowen. The number of Garda personnel in the area is based on the population who live in the area. The fact that Derry city is the fourth largest city in Ireland and that there is a constant movement of people across the Border into towns in Inishowen, including Burnfoot, Buncrana and north Inishowen, is not taken into consideration. Resources are not put in place to deal with this issue. There is a fundamental problem in the area because there is double the amount of traffic as a result of people crossing the Border from another jurisdiction.

When debating road safety, we must consider extra Garda personnel. We require ten times the number of Garda personnel in Inishowen to deal with the current problems. There is one 24-hour manned Garda station in Burnfoot. That is a 30 minute response time to north Inishowen, which is not good enough. We need resources for a second 24-hour Garda station in north Inishowen to cater for the ever-increasing amount of traffic coming from Derry city.

I will not go into the repercussions for drivers who speed and live in the North. There are no ramifications for these people if they are arrested for speeding. This problem needs to be addressed in the short term.

The majority of young people are very responsible drivers and they want to do something about this. Next Wednesday, the Minister of State will have the privilege of meeting young people from Cork to Donegal at a protest entitled Cruise the Dáil. They are protesting about specifications relating to car exhausts and tinted windows. While these are issues, road safety, dangerous driving and road fatalities will not be resolved by addressing them. Young people are travelling to the Phoenix Park next Wednesday and it is expected that between 1,000 and 1,500 cars will be present. Twenty representatives of the group will attend Leinster House to meet the Minister of State. They will put forward the case regarding the two issues I mentioned. However, the opportunity should not be missed to heed their message that all young people do not drive recklessly and they do not want to see their peers dying on the roads. They want to do something about it and the Minister of State will experience their conviction in this regard first hand.

I hope we can move forward. We can do so because many young people want to get involved. It is positive that they are staying at home in County Donegal and in County Clare, where Senator Dooley is from, rather than emigrating, as they would have done not so long ago. They are staying at home, working in their local communities and buying cars. They pay outrageous amounts for car insurance but they are at home.