Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

In August 2001, the Minister of State at the then Department of the Environment and Local Government, Bobby Molloy, who had specific responsibility for road safety, announced his intention to penalise motorists using mobile telephones while driving. Yesterday, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, said that he will introduce legislation in these Houses to ban the use of mobile telephones in vehicles. My party supports that position and will co-operate with the Government in ensuring that the legislation is brought through the Houses as a means of demonstrating to drivers that this issue must be addressed.

In 2003, fixed penalties were introduced in Northern Ireland for the use of mobile telephones in cars. We should introduce necessary legislation and this House would be the proper place to do so. Clearly, the legislation needs to be legally sound and proven to work because there are many in the legal fraternity who simply pick over driving offence cases and use them as a means to undermine the law.

This will be an unpopular measure because the culture of using mobile telephones is now pervasive in all areas of society, not least on the road. However, if politicians come together on this issue, in a co-operative way and introduce tough new laws, we will see positive results in terms of reducing the carnage on our roads. My party will support the Government if it chooses to introduce the legislation in this House.

I recently had occasion to travel from Dublin to Belfast and noted that between Dundalk and the M50 there is no place to pull over, stop for petrol or have a coffee, despite the fact that the National Safety Council, through advertising campaigns, is constantly advising people to do so on long journeys. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, took the NRA to task some months ago and stated that provision should be made for petrol stations and service areas on our roads. I ask the Leader to report to the House in the coming weeks on whether the Minister of Transport is planning to enforce this because there is very little point in encouraging motorists to take breaks while driving if there is nowhere for them to stop.