Sean Barrett (Independent)

I welcome the Minister and agree with much of what has been said by Senators O'Sullivan and O'Neill. Road deaths have been reduced from a more than 600 annually and Senator O'Neill brought us up to date. However, 13 fatalities a month is still too many and we need to support the Minister as he attempts to reduce that number. This is a good time to consider where we should go next. In 2009 we were 39% more accident prone than the United Kingdom. Great progress was made under the former Ministers, Martin Cullen and Noel Dempsey. The report previously referred to as the Road Accident Facts was correctly renamed the Road Collision Facts because we realised they were not accidents but were caused by people. They indicate the number of fatalities per 1 million vehicles has been reduced from 257 to 97 since 1990, which is a reduction of 62%.

We are addressing here 17 to 18 fatalities - typically one per year in buses and the balance in commercial vehicles. However, it leaves a large part in the safety picture needing to be addressed on which the House should reflect. There are still 146 fatalities of car drivers and we will need to find a way to improve that statistic. Some suggestions are made in the report. There are 40 fatalities among pedestrians, 25 among motor cyclists and seven among pedal cyclists. Those 42 pedestrians, motor cyclists and pedal cyclists are four times more important in number than the ones we are addressing here.

Single vehicle accidents have increased from 30% to 40% of the total according to the road collision facts. Some 92% of these are caused by drivers. I will later reflect on how we might address some of that, but it is a much bigger problem than the one we are considering today.

Table 17 of road collision facts shows that there was not one case where the vehicle was judged by the Garda to be the primary cause. Some 92% of accidents were caused by drivers, 5% by pedestrians and 3% by road conditions. So while supporting the Minister in what he is doing, I would not expect it to dramatically improve the numbers. We have a lot of other things to do but I will be supporting him as I did when he introduced new drink driving limits. In 2009, there were 238 road fatalities and the figure has come down but many matters remain to be addressed.

References were made to cowboys. In studying Irish transport, I have found that the incumbents always believe that their competitors are cowboys. When they go to the Department they tell that to the Minister. However, one must satisfy one's insurance company and in business customers have to be satisfied. Aer Lingus did the job successfully for years, saying that any other airline would be a fly-by-night outfit. In addition, CIE did it, saying that any other bus company would be useless. Indeed, members of the Irish Road Hauliers Association did it, but the sector was deregulated by Peter Barry and expanded its share of the market to about 72%, with the other 28% being own account.

As was pointed out the last time we discussed this, rail freight has declined from about one fifth to under 1% now. This is a good, responsible and professional business and that is noted in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report. It said that it depends on trust and professionalism both by vehicle operators and test centres. They have an acceptable record there. Some 80% of our road safety problem will still require to be addressed because of the other factors I have mentioned: motorists, motorcyclists and cyclists. Goods vehicles accounted for 17% of fatalities while buses accounted for 1% out of 238 road deaths in 2009.

I am worried about the introduction of risk rating, which is a highly inexact science. Are we moving towards a system where we will have three verdicts in Irish law: guilty, not guilty and risk rated? We could be doing serious damage to somebody's bus or truck operation by giving them a high number on risk rating. I do not have that much confidence in the actuarial professional or whoever will be doing this risk rating. It seems to be an imposition on us by the EU but we should have discussed it at that level. We could find ourselves open to large compensation claims by giving somebody the wrong risk rating. In any field of activity - including the Minister's own one, the medical profession - can one, with that degree of precision, attach an anticipation of a result to procedures where there is risk involved? Would one decline to perform an operation on the basis of risk rating?

People will say they have their records and have not infringed but under risk rating they will have a number attached to them for which there appears to be no right of appeal but which could be seriously damaging. Perhaps we will discuss that tomorrow. It should be evidence-based, rather than by risk rating. I will support the Minister in all cases where it is evidence-based.

Trucks and modern buses can cost a few hundred thousand euro to buy, so there is a lot at stake in this. The Minister may have been told too much about cowboys but the evidence does not support that. The bulk of road accidents are caused outside the sectors we are dealing with today. The Minister may care to review what we have said about risk rating.

I found some sections in the PricewaterhouseCoopers' report strange. On page 17, it awards zero to the present system of enforcement and to management information. They then compile about five other factors with different weightings. A bogus scientific methodology has been used. The system that was rated zero for enforcement carried out 516,000 roadworthiness tests. The management information system that got a zero rating, reported all of those according to a press statement dated 5 April 2012. It seems there was enforcement and it was reported and that PricewaterhouseCoopers erred in giving two zeros. It seems that 94% of operators are satisfied with the system and it is stated in paragraph 171 of the report that it works on the level of trust and professionalism of those involved. We have built up an exceptionally good independent and State-owned bus business and this is also the case in the road freight business. The accident rate has been falling dramatically. It is a case of deciding how to proceed. The high-risk categories are pedestrians, and solutions could include the use of high visibility jackets, educational programmes for pedestrians, and intelligent vehicles which will be able to stop when an obstruction is detected. The Minister will meet other transport Ministers from OECD countries in Leipzig. Ireland has a very high accident rate with more than 92% of accidents occurring on single carriageways. Perhaps a technology could be designed to keep a vehicle on the correct side of the road. High visibility jackets are essential for motorcyclists. There should be speed limits for motorcycles as motorcyclists have a very high propensity for fatal accidents with 25% of motorcyclists more likely to be killed on the road than other road users. I suggest similar speed limits for pedal cyclists. A total of 40% of fatalities occur on Sundays and Mondays with the high concentration of fatalities being between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Should the Garda Síochána be on the lookout at those times? This is the time period when not much bus or freight traffic is on the roads and it is when weekend and drink drivers are on the roads. I suggest more Garda patrols to deal with this behaviour would have more dramatic effects on the accident statistics.

I referred on the previous occasion the Minister was in the House to the issue of Border areas and to the high rate of fatalities in Donegal and Cavan. The 2009 figures confirm that it is more than twice as dangerous to drive in County Louth than in County Carlow. Some discussion with the PSNI on how to stop the rate of dangerous driving in Border areas would be desirable. Such driving seems to have moved from the western part of Donegal over to County Louth. The plastic driving licence is a good idea although it is noted that the Oireachtas asked for the report on which this recommendation was based and it was not forthcoming. This report should be supplied because the decision is correct and I have advocated the use of the plastic driving licence. It was not available in the Oireachtas Library.

I welcome the Minister to the House and I look forward to further discussion on Committee Stage. This Bill will probably deal with about one fifth of the problem and the task ahead in dealing with the other four fifths of the road safety problem in Ireland will require a further initiative, some of which I have suggested. I assure the Minister of my support in this regard. Bringing the figure down to 13 deaths per month is still far too high. The progress in making Irish roads much safer and bringing the figure down from 600 deaths to under 200 per year must be continued in the interests of everybody.