Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. The Road Safety Authority Bill is welcome and has the broad support of the House. The greatest problem on the roads is speed. While it would help for Government to reduce speed to a maximum of 50 km/h that is not possible because people must get from A to B, and go to work. We have improved the standard of the roads and our speed limits match the norm in Europe but unfortunately many people do not observe them.

One sees people drive at alarming speeds on the road from the west or the midlands to Dublin but because there is a well-publicised speed camera at the end of the motorway in Lucan, these drivers slow to 80 km/h. It is not a problem to slow to that speed, even in heavy traffic. Maybe there should be more portable cameras. Placing camera bases, even without live cameras, at black spots would immediately improve road safety.

People blame drivers with provisional licences but many provisional licence holders are careful and safe drivers. Blaming them is often an easy way out. People complain about the numbers holding provisional licences but this is a wealthy country. A few years ago no one needed a provisional licence, unless for a bicycle, because people could not afford to buy cars. Today, people have the money to buy cars and therefore need provisional licences. There may be a backlog in the driver testing centres but provisional licence holders are not the real problem.

The use of mobile telephones in cars is also raised as a road safety issue. While people have hands-free mobile telephones in their cars, many people drive cars and trucks with one hand on the steering wheel and a mobile telephone in the other. This continues, regardless of the advertising and warnings issued by the Department. That is not acceptable. People should act responsibly but unfortunately do not do so.

As a pioneer I should perhaps not comment on drink driving because people criticise me for knocking drink drivers but nobody should drive when under the influence of alcohol. Garda records show an increase in the numbers caught drink driving in recent months, due to good detective work and having more gardaí on the beat. The Government and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform deserve credit for ensuring there are more gardaí in the traffic corps.

Drivers fear getting penalty points. Unfortunately, however, there are cases of people who come from outside the 26 counties who get away with dangerous driving. The story goes that Irish people who are caught give the names and addresses of friends from the North. That problem, however, is being tackled and hopefully people coming into this country will observe the speed limits here or, if not, receive penalty points on their licences.

At weekends, when traffic is heavy with people driving to matches or whatever, it is unreasonable to have a full lane dedicated to buses as there are few buses on the road. That should change — some bus lanes are open at weekends but most are not.

I notice many people driving left-hand drive cars. They come here to work and are welcome. When they earn some money it seems they can bring in old cars from their own countries, which are left-hand drive. Recently, I drove behind a person in one of these cars in a small town. The driver tried four or five times to pass the van in front of him. In order to see the oncoming traffic he had to put the front of his car out on the road but each time had to pull back because traffic was coming against him. The consequences of pulling out in that way can be serious as recent accidents, in which carloads of people have been killed, show.

We welcome the increased number of gardaí but it is wasteful for the garda who has caught someone breaking the law to have to attend in court because often the solicitor will seek and be granted an adjournment. A chief superintendent or sergeant should be able to go into court on behalf of that garda and look after the case. One sees many gardaí in the courts. We must deal with that problem.

I wish Gay Byrne and the road safety authority well. They will do a good job. No matter who was appointed, people would shout that he or she was the wrong person. He and the authority need a chance to prove themselves, as does the Minister of State in his new role. There has been some improvement in road safety and we will soon see more.