Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

I raise the issue of the women's under-19 soccer qualifier against Sweden in Bulgaria yesterday. The players stood facing their Irish flag when Britain's "God Save the King" played through the speakers. The music was cut off after approximately 30 seconds. There was an awkward silence and then the ladies proudly sang "Amhrán na bhFiann". I cannot imagine what was going through their minds and how they felt before that game. I know they lost yesterday, but that must have been very difficult for them not to have their own anthem playing. It is important that we have our own anthem playing for all our sporting events, and I would like to see if we can find out what happened yesterday. Was it a complete mistake, or did the people in Bulgaria think that was our anthem? We cannot let that happen for our fabulous ladies who are travelling and playing soccer. That is my first point.

I concur with my colleague about road traffic accidents. There are 16,000 learner drivers on Meath roads now. Those statistics are from the RSA. It has increased by 285 learner permits in the past six months. There are 394,000 learner drivers in total on Ireland's roads. A quarter of all learner drivers in Meath are between the ages of 17 and 20. I spoke a few weeks ago about road deaths and the Just 1 Life campaign that Navan rotary is running through schools and how important it is that we are speaking to school students about safety on our roads. We need to start young. By the end of October, 141 people had lost their lives on Irish roads. That is the same number as for the whole of last year. By the 20 November, that number was 158. That is not just 158 people. That has absolutely torn apart heartbroken families across Ireland. I cannot even imagine what those families go through when something like that happens. Most are drivers and one third are pedestrians. There are motorcyclists, cyclists and passengers and e-scooter fatalities. I agree with, and would like to see, the Minister coming here to discuss what we are doing. I know, a few months ago, we spoke about driving test wait times. They are now down to an average of eight and a half weeks, which is excellent, but we need to tackle this head on, pardon the use of that term. We need to tackle this more than we are now. We cannot have 16,000 people in Meath on learner permits and we must ask the RSA to do all it can to cut this number. It is a scary thought to have so many driving around our county and country on learner permits.