Seanad debates

Thursday, 9 February 2012

11:00 am

Photo of Caít KeaneCaít Keane (Fine Gael)

"Morning Ireland" this morning carried a story of a new investment of €3 billion from an American source. The European Commission has commended the way bonds are going in Ireland. Rather than always downing ourselves, when we see ourselves being praised in Europe and America we should say to ourselves we are going in the right direction.

Everybody recognises we have a lot to but if we keep hitting ourselves, somebody else will beat us when we are down.

I congratulate the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport on his initiative in regard to the GoSafe programme for speed cameras. Although €10 million has been raised through the speed cameras, the programme is intended to save lives rather than a fund-raising exercise. I would like to know how much of this €10 million will be invested in additional cameras. The locations of cameras are available online. I do know if that is a good idea given that we do not yet have a sufficient mass of cameras. It is easy to go online to find out the location of cameras before starting a journey. Until such time as there is saturation coverage of cameras, it might be self-defeating to reveal their locations. Some of the cameras are located at the entrances to towns and villages, which is like catching herrings in a barrel. I ask the Minister to ensure that GoSafe, the private company operating the programme, puts the cameras in optimal locations. The programme must be working given that 100,000 penalty points were issued in the past six months.

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