Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a good point. There is a good reason for that regulation and I can do it by regulation. It does not need to be specifically included in the Bill.

I am not aware of any Garda policy on motorways that is any different to national primary or national secondary roads. It is the case that motorways are the safest roads in the country, so it makes sense that the Garda should focus on enforcement in areas where accidents happen on dangerous stretches of road, rather than just trying to catch out people on roads that are relatively safe.

The cost of insurance was raised by Senator Kelly. It is so expensive for young drivers because they are involved in the most accidents. Insurance in Ireland is a function entirely of the market. Companies have to offer a quote, and the best people can do is shop around. The Senator made a suggestion of something like a three day insurance policy. It sounds like an interesting idea. I do not know if it will be workable or whether it will be enforceable, but I suggest that the Senator makes contact with the insurance companies and see if they would take it on as an idea. Perhaps they would offer some kind of weekend insurance, but the decision would be for them and not for the Government.

A few Senators, including Senator O'Donovan, raised the issue of cars having their lights on during the day. There is now an EU requirement that all new cars be fitted with daylight lights, but that will not be fully in place until 2022, because there are cars still in use that do not have proper lights. It is the norm in France and other places for people to have their lights on all day, and the evidence is that it is safer to do so.

Senator Coghlan raised the issue of single vehicle fatalities and whether some of them could be suicides. Certainly some of them are, and when they are adjudged to be suicides, they are no longer counted as road traffic deaths, but that is down to the coroners to decide. It is fair to say that for very good reasons, coroners are pretty loathe to put something down as a suicide, unless it is clear that it is. That usually involves some sort of intent or a suicide note. They do not jump to the conclusion lightly that it is a suicide, and I think they are probably right in that respect, but I have no doubt that some of those single vehicle deaths are suicides are more so than that which appear in the official statistics. They are also down to other reasons such as speeding, fatigue, dangerous driving, careless driving, drink driving and so on.

Senator Brennan asked about penalty points. The speed limit should be the speed limit. I would not like to get into anything too complicated about being 10% above the speed limit, or 5% or whatever. However, one thing under consideration for legislation is treating it differently depending upon how much a driver is above the speed limit. At the moment, a person gets three penalty points whether he or she is going twice the speed limit or 5 km/h above the limit. We are considering, in a future Bill, making a distinction between those who are just above the speed limit and those who are very much above the speed limit. We already do that for drink driving. We do not do it for speeding.