Liam Fitzgerald (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. Her work on the safety of school buses is to be commended and encourages us greatly. These measures and others she has outlined in great detail in this debate deserve our full support and the full and immediate support of Government. While I have criticisms of the school transport system, they are not directed at the Minister of State, her Department or her colleague, the Minister. There has been a national malaise but the Department is an insignificant part of it. The criticisms made by Senator Ulick Burke, some of which are relevant, are misdirected.

It is sad that exceptionally tragic accidents involving school buses have occurred on our roads recently. We have a moral imperative, above all other national, community and personal needs, to identify the culprits and embark immediately on a crusade in the interests of the safety of our school children when using public roads. It is not acceptable that it has taken the loss of young lives, full of promise and potential, to challenge us to look at ourselves. Simply put, we must immediately and urgently become honest and objective appraisers of our shortcomings.

Like all road accidents, school bus accidents occur because of institutionalised attitudes and practices. Our immediate crusade must be to root out the cultural factors that skulk in the casual undergrowth of road accidents. Current policy in this regard is misguided and is not yielding the desired results. A collaborative approach to road safety for all road users, schoolchildren and adults alike, one to which everyone can subscribe, is urgently needed.

If we, as legislators, want gardaí to win public approval for enforcement of road safety laws, we must as a series of measures stop them from skulking behind walls and hedges along wide, safe roads to plunder money from the motorist. My message is clear: let us stop shooting fish in a barrel. Every stretch of road should have a hazard rating based on the number of serious accidents over, for example, a ten-year period. This would be divided by the length of road in miles, multiplied by the number of cars using it daily. This would give a simple serious accident index for roads such as the N17 between Galway and Tuam, which I used thousands of times over 30 years, of perhaps 300 accidents divided by 20 miles, multiplied by 8,000, being the number of cars using the road daily, divided by 10,000. This would give an accident index of 12. It could also be divided by, for example, 1,000, and the accident index would be 120. The public would quickly begin to acknowledge that accidents are prone to happen on many of our minor roads. This would have a much more positive effect than the pieces of steel casually placed on roads — I mean no disrespect — stating that 88 people were killed on the roads of Wicklow over the past four years.

We have been able to bring the economy from the brink of bankruptcy to the dizzy heights of being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Let us apply the same principles of partnership and collaboration to save lives on our roads. Let us do it with the same urgency and determination. Is not the solution as simple and as plain as the nose on one's face?