Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Question 46: To ask the Minister for Transport the level of funding and resources his Department are requesting in order to expand the drug testing programme of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety; when he will publish a range of comprehensive measures on the drug-testing of drivers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32776/07]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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The issue of funding and resources for the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MBRS) is under consideration in the context of the overall funding and resources for my Department and its non-commercial state agencies for 2008. With regard to drug testing of drivers, the Road Traffic Acts already provide that a member of the Garda Síochána may, where he or she is of the opinion that a person in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle in a public place is under the influence of a drug or drugs to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of that vehicle, require that person to go to a Garda station and further require that person to submit to a blood test or to provide a urine sample. There is no feasible basis yet in Ireland or in Europe for the introduction of a preliminary roadside test for drugs as testing devices are still in the prototype stages. However my Department, with the MBRS, is keeping abreast of developments in this area.