Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I echo the points made on road safety by other speakers. The statistics for 2006 give us real cause to be concerned. A total of 366 people were killed on Irish roads and, unfortunately, in the first ten months of this year 279 people were killed in road-related accidents.

Other statistics are equally depressing. More than 166,000 people were caught speeding on the road so far this year. Of those killed on the roads, four out of ten were between 17 and 25 years of age. More than 15,000 drunk drivers were caught on Irish roads in the first ten months of the year and this is despite increased awareness and programmes on the dangers of drink-driving. A total of 26,347 motorists were caught using their mobile phones while driving and 4,173 seat-belt detections were recorded.

This shows the dreadful number of road related fatalities in this country are not inevitable. They have clear causes to do with alcohol consumption, speeding, lack of training and carelessness. There may also be a sense that road safety requirements are not properly enforced. We have a lackadaisical culture in Ireland which we need to change and introduce more of a zero-tolerance approach to these practices. Unless we do so, the statistics will remain high. We know, as we approach the Christmas holidays and bank holidays, that at the end of those periods we will have an unacceptably high level of road deaths. Yet, we do not seem to be able to seriously reduce those statistics.

The OECD produced a report in 2006 which examined the behaviour of young drivers in 30 countries. It was interesting to note Ireland is not on its own in terms of some of the trends evident on the roads. In crash and traffic fatality statistics, 16 to 24 year olds were greatly over-represented and crashes were the biggest killer of 15 to 24 year olds in all countries studied. Mortality rates for young men were consistently higher than those for young women. This suggests we must particularly focus at younger men those road safety programmes aimed at younger people as it seems they have a greater tendency to speed.

The study also found the younger people are when they start driving on their own and without restrictions the more likely they are to have fatal accidents, particularly prior to turning 18. Age is a key factor. The report found that people receiving more training prior to starting to drive, particularly with a focus on safety issues such as speed, alcohol, seat belts and drugs, results in fewer fatalities. One of the most effective counter-measures suggested by the report was the introduction of a requirement for more accompanied practice before a person obtained his or her driving licence.

The question of driver testing standards will be a critical issue now that we have introduced a requirement for all second provisional licence holders either to be accompanied or to have a full drivers licence by next June. We know of the concern when these measures were introduced and in view of this a time extension was granted to allow people to regularise their situations. It will mean that the 122,000 drivers on second provisional licences will try to complete their driving tests and obtain their full licences by next June, which will put considerable pressure on the testing facilities. Some of the tests are already being carried out by private companies over which concerns have been expressed. The Comptroller and Auditor General investigated driver testing and his report in June found significant regional variations. For example Buncrana had a very high level of passes with 65% whereas the figure for Carlow was as low as 42%. We need to understand the reasons for such significant variation in the result. Given the volumes of tests to be carried out by next June concerns have been expressed that standards should not suffer. There should be rigorous assessment and monitoring of the standards applied to ensure consistency across the country and that people are ending up with the kinds of skills they need and not being passed because of pressure of numbers.

The Green Party approves of all the new road safety measures the Government has recently announced. In addition to these measures we would like to see more full-time road safety officers, especially in secondary schools to provide training in road safety to young people. We would also encourage the inclusion of driving lessons as part of the school curriculum, particularly for transition year students. If many young men received in-depth road safety training at that stage before they began driving, it would result in better driving once they got on the road.

We also support the requirement for young drivers to be accompanied when driving, which the Minister intends enforcing from next June. We would like to see more enforcement of the wearing of seat belts. The statistics I mentioned earlier suggest that not everybody is wearing them. Providing greater resources for the traffic corps would result in people being more careful about meeting the requirement to wear seat belts when driving. We need more consistent standards in testing throughout the country. We need compulsory testing for motorcyclists who are often involved in unfortunate road accidents. With proper training many of these accidents could be avoided.

The Green Party strongly favours lower alcohol limits for drivers. We fully support reducing the permitted levels from 80 mg per 100 ml to 50 mg per 100 ml. I would favour the requirement for drivers to be alcohol free. Even having one or two drinks alters a driver's reaction times. Given that we want to improve significantly the culture of road safety, that would send out a very clear message to people. We need to encourage people not to combine drinking and driving. While that might sound somewhat severe to some people, unfortunately it is very hard to agree a limit at which it is safe for people to drink and drive. Young people with one or two drinks taken can often find it difficult to stop at a certain stage. In general we would be better not to mix drinking and driving at all.

The Green Party would support roadside drug testing. We are aware that there are many people who while they may not have drink on them when driving might be under the influence of other substances. As part of the testing carried out by the traffic corps, we should also consider roadside drug testing. It is a particularly green issue that we also take the road safety requirements of pedestrians and cyclists into consideration. To that end as part of the road safety initiative the Green Party in Government will press for safe routes to school to become a feature of every town and village. The safety of our schoolchildren making their way to and from school is paramount. Local authorities need to take a lead role in ensuring these safe routes to school are effective and properly implemented.

The Green Party would like to ensure an effective high-quality system of cycle lanes throughout the country and especially in urban areas so that cyclists do not take their lives into their hands when they decide to become greener and more environmentally responsible by cycling. Unfortunately at the moment, given the levels of traffic on our roads and particularly in urban areas, many cyclists are taking a significant risk when they decide to cycle rather than drive. We should work with local authorities which should be encouraged to ensure a consistent and acceptable set of cycleways in cities, towns and villages. The unfortunate practice of cars parking in cycle lanes and therefore obstructing them needs to be properly policed by the Garda Síochána.