Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House to discuss this important matter. I compliment the Minister, Deputy Cullen, on the script he delivered and the information he provided to the House. I wish his officials well in their deliberations in the next number of weeks and particularly with the new interdepartmental group mentioned.

I agree with what Senator Paddy Burke said, particularly on the all-party approach to this matter. I extend sympathy to all those affected by the deaths on our roads. As Senator Paddy Burke said, there has been a significant increase in the number of road fatalities already this year. A total of 39 people lost their lives on our roads in January of this year. That is a worrying trend. There was an increase in the number of road fatalities last year compared to the previous year. There was a significant number of road fatalities last year with the number reaching 300 by the end of year. That was a significant increase on the previous year and was the highest since 2001. Notwithstanding the introduction of penalty points, the incidence of road deaths is bedevilling all elements of society. We cannot take the approach to this matter that the Government has not acted in the way that it should. Senator Paddy Burke has been fair in that respect in attempting to analyse or rationalise, as we all do on a daily basis, this situation to understand where the problems lie.

On the trend in the number of road fatalities this year, it is difficult to analyse figures with such a small snapshot of incidents, but 25% of the road deaths to date are of non-nationals. That is particularly tragic when one considers that many of these people have left relatively poor economies to come here to better their lives and those of their families and in the course of doing that they have lost their lives. That is particularly worrying. I would not like to draw any other inference from that trend. There has been an attempt in the media and by certain people for political gain to try to make links to the race issue. That is neither welcome nor helpful.

Another interesting statistic is that 45% of those who died on our roads this year were under 30 year of age. We knew that a concentration of young people die on our roads. These are people who do not have the same experience or perhaps regard for road safety as those who have more experience and more responsibilities in life. We must bear in mind that many of the people killed on our roads are from the younger cohort of the motoring population. That must inform us in developing future policy. The Government is taking this matter seriously, particularly with the introduction of measures announced in terms of the additional penalty points this week and, more particularly, the interdepartmental group the Minister mentioned.

It is also worth taking into account some statistics although they can at times be misleading. In 2001 when there were 411 road deaths, there were 1.6 million cars on our roads. The number of cars on our roads has increased to 2.1 million and there were 399 deaths on our roads last year. Taking account of the increased number of cars on the road, the number of road deaths is not as bad in real terms as it might seem. There has also been a growth in our population in that period. I do not want in any way to imply that any person killed on our roads should be addressed as a statistic. However, in analysing the incidence of road deaths, it is worth noting that in terms of the number of road deaths as a ratio to the number of cars on our road and the increase in our population, we are changing our behaviour and attitude, albeit not quickly enough. Statistics show that to benchmark ourselves to the best practice in road safety in other countries we could do significantly better. Mr. Eddie Shaw has been to the fore in highlighting that. He has said that while no death is acceptable, a figure of 250 or 260 in terms of road fatalities is the figure that would be so-called acceptable for the size and population of this country. We have to try to achieve that reduced figure as quickly as possible.

The Minister referred to driver behaviour being at the root of most accidents, and we know that to be the case. When one notes the ages of those killed on our roads, it is clear that the safer drivers are in the older cohort of the motoring population and tend to be more responsible — correspondingly, their road behaviour tends to be safer and they are less prone to having an accident. The goal facing us is to try to change driver behaviour and culture. The measures the Government is discussing are welcome in that context.

In terms of changing the attitude to and culture of driver behaviour, one cannot simply decide to do that at 9.30 a.m. on a Monday and hope that it will be achieved by 5 p.m. on Friday. It takes almost a generation to bring about that change. The stringent measures in place in terms of penalties for the offences of drink driving and speeding do not act as a deterrent. At times motorists feel they can get away with such behaviour because the gardaí cannot police every street corner or back road in a country the size of Ireland. Therefore, some motorists will take risks. Many accidents have taken place on small country roads. Even if the size of the Garda force were trebled, our country roads could not be policed. It is simply not feasible to do so. Far too much emphasis has been placed on the lack of enforcement. While it is a major issue, some groups are of the view that if the Garda force was doubled or increased to a certain number, there would be more gardaí on street corners, but that is not possible given the dispersed population and rural nature of the country. Accidents are not happening on the motorways and dual carriageways to the extent one might expect. An analysis of road accidents shows they happen in the main on back roads, minor roads and, at times, unapproved roads. In this context, the issue of driver behaviour and education comes into play. I have harped on about the interdepartmental task force, as I consider it is one of the major planks forward in this regard.

The Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science is very much aware of that. She is to be applauded for the work she has done in adult education. There is a role for continuous learning in this context, a concept the Minister espoused in a major way in her time in the Department, whereby people are on a learning curve for the rest of their lives. Such education could be used to change driver behaviour on our roads through people gaining an understanding of issues related to driving and the changes needed. The Department of Education and Science might be able to contribute in that respect because this matter not only comes under the remit of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, although it plays a significant part in terms of the traffic corps. There must be a joined-up approach to dealing with this issue, on which Government is working. That is welcome.

The random breath testing issue has been well covered by the Minister. The proposal legislation is welcome and I look forward to its introduction. It will remove the necessity for a garda to form an opinion on the alcohol consumption of a motorist. This issue has been bandied about in the courts for too long. Court cases have turned into an interrogation of a garda and about how she or he formed an initial opinion, regardless of the results of the intoxication test. We hear from some gardaí reports that a motorist might fall out of the vehicle such is the level of the individual's intoxication but it can be challenged in court that the garda did not form the opinion in the correct way and, subsequently, the case is thrown out of court regardless of what the intoxication test showed or the state of the individual concerned at the time. It is to be welcomed that this issue will be addressed.

I do not want to cross the line but the Judiciary also has a role to play. There is a complete separation of powers and that is necessary, but it is clear from debates in the Oireachtas what is the intention of the Executive and the Legislature in this context at this time. My basic understanding of the way the law works is that the judge is there to interpret the legislation within the confines of the Constitution. The intention of the Oireachtas is clear; it certainly is not that with crafty parsing of legal text a garda can become the person being interrogated and the individual concerned who has been proven, through the evidential breath test and the intoxiliser test, to have been well over the limit can find a way through the system. I suppose drink driving was acceptable or semi-acceptable at one time but that culture has changed, certainly in more recent years. We must deal with that.

I have always had a cautious approach to the introduction of penalty points. I welcomed the initial introduction of the penalty points and I give a guarded welcome to the current round of penalty points, although I would not want the penalty points to go any further. I understand that initially up to 60 offences were identified as being worthy of penalty point accumulation. Some of them bordered on the ridiculous. We might lose a certain amount of the public's buy-in to this concept if we go down that road to the fullest extent.

The list of offences which attracts penalty points at present is important because it affects driver behaviour. I have said on many occasions that education is important if we are to change driver attitudes and culture. The offences which initially led to the imposition of penalty points were speeding, failure to use a seat belt, drink driving and dangerous driving. Further measures are being put in place at present.

I am not sure that penalty points are appropriate in the case of a driver who is not in the correct lane when turning onto another road. I have found myself in the wrong lane on more than one occasion, particularly when I was on roads with which I was not familiar. I hope that penalty points will apply in such instances only on major roads with the maximum speed limit. I am not sure that penalty points should be imposed when people choose the incorrect lane in confined areas such as villages and towns. Those of us who come to Dublin on a weekly basis find that the lay-out of lanes on streets can change from week to week. The regulations in this regard should be subject to a liberal interpretation or further qualification.

I have seen the basic information sheet on the new penalty points regime. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy de Valera, to discuss this matter with her officials. We need to amend the regulations to ensure that the offence I have mentioned does not attract penalty points in towns, villages and other places where restricted speed limits are in place. Drivers can easily find themselves in the outside lane when travelling at a snail's pace. I understand the need to ensure that drivers do not swerve from the outside lane across the inside lane to try to reach the exit on a dual carriageway or a motorway. There is no justification for such behaviour because exits are very well signposted on all primary routes. I would like the Minister of State to clarify this matter at a later stage.

The striking advertisements with which we are familiar demonstrate that a real effort has been made to increase publicity as part of an overall programme of driver education. There has been a helpful degree of co-operation on both sides of the Border in the interests of helping people to understand the impact of deaths on our roads. I compliment RTE, particularly Mr. Charlie Bird, on an interview that was broadcast last evening with a gentleman who is mourning the death of his daughter who was killed in a road accident some weeks ago. I understand that the man in question spoke to Mr. Bird just 48 hours after his daughter was buried. It is right that the harrowing report in question was the lead item on last night's RTE news bulletins. A story about two dogs on drugs was the lead item on the news for a couple of days last week, which cannot be justified in the context of what is going on in society.

I was impressed by the report on yesterday evening's 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. news bulletins. The comments of the father of a woman who was killed in recent days will remind people of the importance of this issue. He explained what it means to him to have lost his daughter and, more particularly, what it means to his daughter's young child to have lost her mother. Those of us who see children on a daily basis understand the impact such a tragedy would have. Such a striking and harrowing report will probably do more to change driver behaviour than many of the other measures which have been put in place. I compliment RTE on the report and I hope it will continue such an approach to its news output.

I came across a road accident before Christmas as I was travelling from Dublin to County Clare early one morning, just after I had finished my business in this House. As the traffic was moving slowly, I was able to see a priest saying prayers over the body of a dead woman, which had been abandoned on a ditch by the road. For the rest of that day, I thought I would hear reports of what had happened and what was the cause of the accident but it never even made the news. There was not a scrap of information about it in the newspaper the next day. It would be particularly sad if the deaths on our roads, which have such significant consequences for the lives of all concerned, were not deemed worthy of news coverage. It would be wrong for media organisations not to see such accidents as news because they happen so frequently.

If the deaths on the roads are kept to the fore by being in the headlines, they will continue to shock people. Given that we depend on news reports for our information, such reports should not omit any mention of the fatalities on our roads. If those of us who listen to "Morning Ireland" each morning start to notice that the first item is usually about a person having died in a traffic accident, slowly but surely that will help us to slow down. When I saw a dead woman on the road as I was rushing to a number of events in County Clare, I took the attitude that it did not matter if I was ten minutes or half an hour late for the rest of the day. We will have some success in this regard only if the media takes the approach I have suggested. The media has an obligation to report road deaths and it is certainly doing it. I compliment RTE on the approach it adopted on last night's news bulletins.

I thank the Minister of State for attending this debate. I am sure she will use her position in the Department of Education and Science to make some proposals in this area.