Donie Cassidy (Fianna Fail)

It is the Upper House and we did not get a reputation by a one-liner in a newspaper. We earned the reputation through the years. I am sounding a warning as someone who works very well with people who have given employment and works hard to keep people in employment. FÁS must consider giving 100% training grants in order that we can upskill our people. People are available to be retrained and employers will give them time to do so, but they will not pay 25% for the employee to do nothing. The employee will benefit from being upskilled and we must give 100% from the FÁS allocation. Speaking from memory, I believe the figure is in the region of €4 billion, a sizeable amount of money made available to train people up to 2020.

Senators also referred to the horrific accidents at the weekend, where nine people lost their lives. I join with the House in expressing our condolences to the unfortunate families of those who have lost their lives. As Chairman of the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business, of which Senators Coghlan and Leyden were also members, we did a hell of a good job with regard to insurance reform. We had the admiration of quite a number of Senators. The committee played a leading role in supporting the Minister and the Government in introducing penalty points. Penalty points have made people fear the law. There was a massive reduction in the number of road accidents in the first seven or eight months following their introduction. The committee also recommended the installation of speed cameras. We join with Gay Byrne and the Road Safety Authority in their call for their speedier installation.

The committee also had the courage to propose random breath-testing. The Government sub-committee recommended random breath-testing two weeks later and introduced it on 21 July 2006. At least 200 people are alive today who would not be if random breath-testing had not been introduced two years ago. There are thousands of people going about their daily chores who would have suffered serious injuries had it not been introduced.