Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

I rise to support Senator Brian Hayes with regard to disappointment over the decision not to designate the Ryder Cup competition as free-to-air. The Minister fuelled a certain level of expectation that this would happen when he announced he was to have broad-ranging consultations and raise the matter at European level. The Minister has put forward as the reason that the Attorney General is not satisfied that it satisfies the criteria for designation. Could the Attorney General not have given the benefit of his advice at the start and so avoid the expectation growing that it would happen?

I note a worrying trend. The Heineken Cup has captured the imagination of the Irish people with the successes of the Munster and Leinster teams in recent times and rugby is on the crest of a wave as a result. The next Heineken Cup series beginning in November will be on pay-per-view television. This is very disappointing. We would appear to have got it wrong in 2003 in our designation of these sporting events. I am disappointed with the approach adopted by the Minister which fuelled such expectations.

Irish motorists will need to be familiar with the 31 penalty point offences announced last week. It is disappointing to note that road safety statistics show that 20% of penalty points have been allocated to foreign drivers and will not apply to them because they live outside the jurisdiction. One quarter of all road crashes involve uninsured vehicles. Since 2002, penalty points issued for uninsured vehicles included those 2,000 issued to foreigners. Only 120 Irish motorists have been uninsured. The importance of insurance is well known. The Revenue Commissioners have stated they have no knowledge of the number of foreign cars in the country. If we are trying to put this jigsaw on road safety together, it is about time we grappled with the statistics of up to 600 foreign drivers being issued with penalty points for careless driving.

We are trying to confront the road safety issue. We had better pull this piece of the jigsaw together if we want to be effective. Otherwise, we will experience a constant spiral in the number of road deaths. It is about time we grappled with this issue. Foreign drivers are an expanding cohort of the population. They come from a different driving system with different signage and they would normally drive on the other side of the road. It is time we examined this situation in a more serious way.