Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

While all legislation that comes before the Oireachtas is important, this Bill is critically so. It offers the potential of savings hundreds, even thousands, of lives if it is properly implemented. I am disappointed at the unacceptable delay in producing the Bill given that the proposals contained in the legislation were first mooted ten years ago.

The Government's record on road safety is appalling. At a time when most European countries are significantly improving their road safety measures and succeeding in reducing the level of death and fatalities on their roads, in Ireland our level of road deaths is getting worse. In 2005, 399 people were killed on our roads. In 2002 the figure was 376. With 178 people already killed on our roads, 12 more than at this point last year, this year's figure will be even worse.

The picture is one of a worsening situation of carnage on our roads. Only last month, an EU survey placed Ireland's level of enforcement of road safety measures low on the scale of European states. In particular, it highlighted our problem in dealing with drink driving and speeding. This survey once again identifies that we are regressing on road safety.

The Government will lay the blame for this level of death and injury at the door of personal responsibility. While individuals have a significant role in ensuring they drive carefully and responsibly and obey the Rules of the Road, State structures are also vital in improving road safety. The Government must hang its head in shame. It is not new to the fact Ireland has a bad road safety record. In its nine years in office, it could have taken decisive action to reduce fatalities. Instead, this jaded Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government has produced two glossy road safety strategies but failed to implement the key recommendations contained in them.

The Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, owes the House and the wider public a full explanation as to why it has taken so long for key life-saving measures such as the roll-out of speed cameras, random breath testing, stiffer drink driving penalties and the ban on mobile telephones to finally make their way into legislation. The Government has been in office for almost ten years. In that time these measures could easily have been debated and enacted by the Oireachtas. Instead, we got stalemate, inaction, U-turns and procrastination. While the public waited for action from the Government, hundreds died in the interim on our roads and thousands more have been injured.

Not once, but twice has the Government failed to reach the targets set in its own road safety strategy. From 1998 to 2004 and from 2004 to now, the Government has failed to reach the target of reducing road deaths by 25%. Instead, the numbers killed on our roads have continued to soar and hundreds of lives which could have been saved if the Government had acted sooner, were lost.

Since the initial effects of the introduction of penalty points began to wear off in early 2004, an additional 1,200 people have lost their lives on our roads. Mr. Eddie Shaw, the former chief executive officer of the National Safety Council, persistently told the Government that if it fully implemented its road safety strategy, the numbers killed on our roads each year could be reduced by as much as 200 per annum. This would have halved the current level of carnage. The Government cannot be proud of its record of inaction and paralysis. Neither does the response of the Government offer any comfort to the families, friends and communities of those who have been killed or seriously injured. The legislation is too little too late for them.

Despite their delayed appearance, I welcome the key proposals contained in the legislation, particularly those dealing with random breath testing, the national roll-out of speed cameras, the ban on driving with a hand held mobile telephone and the proposed reform of the driving test. The devil, however, is in the detail. The Bill's detail does not inspire great confidence that it will dramatically change our appalling road safety record or reduce the carnage on our roads. I say this because, first, it is a fact that enforcement of both existing road traffic legislation and today's proposals will be critical to its success and, second, that many of the proposals in this legislation are merely enabling provisions which must be implemented at a future date. They do not suggest rapid and dramatic change to our current road safety enforcement nor are they intended to do so.

In terms of enforcement, the figures extracted from numerous parliamentary questions have suggested that the level of enforcement by the Garda in areas such as speed checks, roadside inspections, convictions for drink driving, etc., has remained low. In effect, if current road traffic legislation is not properly enforced and is not having an impact, it is difficult to see how placing additional burdens on the Garda will create change. With all road traffic legislation, a visible presence of gardaí implementing such legislation on our roads is the only way progress can be made. It is difficult to see whether the Garda has the manpower and resources to do this.

I am disappointed that much of this legislation does little more than enable either the current Minister for Transport or some future Minister to enact provisions to reform aspects of our road safety regime such as the driver licensing system. That system will not be reformed until the current mess with regard to the massive backlog of drivers waiting over a year to get a driving test and the dependence of thousands of other drivers on a provisional licence is resolved.

The problem with the current approach is that because of the Government's dithering on this issue it could be many years before the problem with the backlog is anywhere near being resolved. In the meantime we will continue to allow inexperienced drivers to drive on our roads. It is outrageous that learner drivers who fail their test are allowed to drive away regardless. The legislation will do nothing to resolve this problem. It remains at the whim of the Minister for Transport to enact regulations to change our driving test system.

The Minister has introduced legislation which promises much but delivers little. We had a similar situation with the recent road safety authority legislation where the Minister followed a similar pattern of introducing legislation which lacks teeth and which merely promises to introduce further reforms at some unknown point in the future. The authority is now a shell organisation subject to the whim of the Minister for Transport. This has the danger of leaving the authority subject to the Minister's decision as to whether to prioritise a particular function for the authority. Its functions should have been clearly laid out from day one. I would have no problem if the Minister wished to add to or expand its functions. The new authority currently exists in a powerless vacuum in terms of functions and duties.

Something similar is happening with the legislation before the House. It promises much but changes little, with much resting on the power of the Minister to bring forward the necessary regulations. Given the Government's track record of failing to bring forward critical road safety measures in the past nine or more years, it is extremely difficult to believe the Minister will now prioritise this matter, but I hope it will be otherwise.

I welcome the decision to implement stricter penalties for existing road traffic penalties in areas such as fixed charges and disqualification for certain drink driving offences, an increase in financial penalties, disqualification periods and so on. However, I must return to the point I made earlier, that all of these measures can only be successful if Garda presence on our roads is high and remains constant, not just for special periods such as bank holiday weekends. If enforcement is not sustained the public will lose confidence and the impact of this and existing road traffic legislation will wear off, just as was the case with the penalty points system.

I welcome the broad outline of the legislation. Amendments to it are required and these will be teased out on Committee Stage. In this regard, I am particularly concerned by the lack of teeth to effect change contained in the Bill's proposals and the danger that it could fail to make an impact. I regret that it has taken so long for these proposals to come before the Oireachtas and I urge the Minister to now assure this House and the public that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated. The Minister and his Cabinet colleagues must now prioritise road safety. If they do not, more lives will be needlessly lost and damaged on our roads.