Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The last thing we need is legislation that might become a lawyer's paradise. I welcome the legislation, the thrust of which is to provide for greater care and security on the roads. We cannot have too much of that. Deputy Penrose spoke about the many motorists travelling to Croke Park who find after the match that their cars have been clamped. That is a problem. However, the other side of that coin is that Croke Park has a capacity of 80,000. Up to this point, the Gaelic Athletic Association has not taken any steps to provide a cordon sanitaire of approximately one mile in radius within which motorists would not be allowed to park, as had been proposed ten or 12 years ago. It was proposed to the local authority that park and ride facilities would be provided once the project was complete.

The Iona and District Residents' Association and the Croke Park Area Residents' Association presented a set of proposals to the Minister for residents' permit parking as part of an overall programme to deal with parking on match and concert days. This would apply to Croke Park and Dalymount Park. I understand the Minister has reviewed the proposal but has yet to give his response. I would like to see an amendment to this legislation to include the care and safety of residents and spectators coming to Croke Park and other stadia.

Most of the provisions in the Bill are practical and useful. Random breath testing should have been introduced long ago so that a garda did not need to have a suspicion that a driver was drunk before carrying out a test. Apparently this is the norm in Europe and I welcome its introduction here. The obvious place for a checkpoint is at the gateway of a pub's car park. Gardaí occasionally turning up at public houses at closing time would deter drivers getting into their cars.

I am somewhat concerned about the failure to reduce the blood-alcohol limit. The current limit of 80 mg per 100 ml is retained, whereas the European norm is 50 mg per 100 ml. I expected this legislation to introduce the European norm rather than sticking to our own standard. It would have been useful to introduce a 0 mg per 100 ml requirement for learner drivers. As they are on probation, drivers with a provisional licence should not be expected to have alcohol content in their blood in any circumstances. That issue has not been addressed and leaves us out of sync with the European norm.

The proposals on drink driving offences will probably represent the most useful amendment to the legislation. Today a drink driving offence carries a sentence of one year's imprisonment. The offence of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury carries a minimum sentence of two years. I presume these cases will no longer be taken in the District Court but in the Circuit Court. At present, the majority of cases of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury are dealt with in the District Court. Why has this been allowed to continue? Now that the offence of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury carries a minimum sentence of two years, it means that the jurisdiction of the District Court cannot apply and such cases will automatically need to be taken in the higher court, which is a welcome development and will represent a major deterrent.

I do not know why it was necessary to introduce a new offence of striking a bridge. I would have thought that all infrastructure would be similarly affected and it should not have been necessary to name a specific piece of infrastructure such as a bridge. Others could also have been mentioned. No doubt the Minister has some arcane explanation.

Only in recent years have we seen the consumption of alcohol increase dramatically here. We have moved from a nation of moderate drinkers 20 years ago to one of the highest consumers of alcohol in Europe today with a 49% per capita increase in ten years. We are top of the European league for binge drinking with more than 40% of men and 60% of women having more than six drinks when they go out drinking on any occasion. Alcohol consumption per adult in Ireland is 56% higher than the European Union average. There are reasonably high consumption amounts among some of the migrant workers who have come to our country just as there is a high proportion among them of accidents on the roads. The cost to the Exchequer attributable to alcohol abuse is approximately €3 billion. Some 40% of traffic deaths and 30% of roadside deaths relate to drink driving.

What Deputy Penrose said about education is very important. The way forward is by taking preventive measures at the earliest possible stage. The penalties prescribed in the legislation are necessary and must be effective, which is another day's work. However, young people coming through school should have a proper knowledge of the rules of the road. They need to be taught how and when to drive. It needs to be made quite clear to them that alcohol should not be consumed prior to taking a car, bicycle or motorcycle onto the roads. This can best be done in schools.

The least said about the equipment available to the Garda, including speed cameras and intoxilyzers, the better. Today the Committee of Public Accounts revealed that 50% of speed cameras are defective. Some 100,000 photographs were defective and could not be used, resulting in people getting off scot free. Intoxilyzers are being challenged in court all the time. Scarcely a week goes by without more cases being thrown out of court because of defective equipment or legislation which did not allow a case to be mounted successfully. This legislation is needed but so too is a culture of responsibility in the manner in which we drive and use the roads. This must begin in homes and schools.

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