Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Bill but it creates as many questions as answers, as many speakers have said. A headline in today's edition of The Irish Times reads "Safety strategy hampered by lack of proper budget." That is typical of what the Government has been guilty of in recent years. There has been no joined-up thinking on road safety. As much has been stated by the former chairman of the road safety authority, Mr. Eddie Shaw, on a number of occasions. The article also states: "The Government has been criticised for failing to provide a budget and a way of measuring the performance of the road safety strategy." That should have been one of the first things the Government did. Someone from the Department of Transport said we could learn from that experience for future strategies but that is not good enough. One can always learn from mistakes but having a plan and failing to have a budget to implement it is not acceptable.