Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

In the past few years road safety has been foremost in all our minds and has been debated on numerous occasions in the House. The responsibility for road safety falls in large part on the Garda Síochána. One of today's newspapers reports a worrying statistic that 2,013 vehicles driven by gardaí have been involved in accidents in recent years, resulting in large compensation claims against the State. There are very poor training facilities for Garda drivers in our depots and it falls to the discretion of the local superintendent to allow a garda to drive a Garda vehicle. It is necessary for gardaí to drive vehicles but such a high incidence of accidents projects a very bad image of Garda drivers, who are responsible for safety and the maintenance of order on our roads. Of the 2,013 accidents to which I referred four involved ministerial cars, so it is important this trend is rapidly reversed. I call on the Leader to ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to immediately provide the resources and facilities for adequate driver training for gardaí.