Feargal Quinn (Independent)

Not everything can be solved by legislation. The work of the task force on active citizenship deserves a great deal of attention but one aspect that can be examined, not by legislation, is the figures that were published last week showing that a large number of children go to bed hungry. Those children are not from families that are less well off. Many of them are from families who are well off and whose parents are cash rich but time poor. They do so because they do not have a family meal at home. That is a worthy issue on which to concentrate our efforts. It does not arise from legislation but from a drive by the community. The issue of families having meals at home has been highlighted in the United States and a campaign has begun on that because they realise that those families who eat together at least once a week have fewer drug, alcohol or smoking addictions in later life and achieve better examination results. It is something we as a nation should concentrate on not by way of legislation but perhaps by way of the task force on active citizenship.

Yesterday we discussed the drama and the horror of what happened on the roads in fog and the behaviour of drivers. We can do something about the number of road deaths if we can change our behaviour. I have mentioned in the House previously that there were 10,000 road deaths per year in France until they elected a President who appointed Mr. Sarkozy who took hold of that challenge and reduced the number of deaths from 10,000 to 5,000 per year by enforcement of the law and by taking a number of sensible, intelligent measures on the roads. I believe we can do those in this country.

One of the measures that convinced me of the effectiveness of it is the lines of approximately 15 metres in length on the side of the motorways indicating that one must keep that distance between one's car and the car in front. If somebody breaks the speed limit and overtakes on those lines, they are breaking the law. Enforcement of the law managed to achieve the success in reducing the number of road deaths and we can do that in Ireland if we give the issue a sufficiently high priority.