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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Mar 1967

Vol. 227 No. 2

Private Members' Business. - Road Traffic Bill, 1966: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

When the debate was adjourned, I was going through various sections to most of which I took exception and some of which I approved of. I hope the Minister will read the remarks I made before the adjournment. It is not in order, nor is it my wish, to go over the same ground again.

My last remarks were on section 27 (3) (b) and I should now like to refer to section 34. I referred to it in dealing with Part V of the Bill in my general statement. This is a section under which a person can be found guilty of an offence which he has not, in fact, committed. I explained that a person like myself leaving this House after a long day, going home and having his first drink of the day at home, could be approached by a police officer up to three hours afterwards who could say to him: "We had a complaint that you were driving erratically in St. Stephen's Green two and a half hours ago and we now have reason to believe that you may have alcohol consumed and so you must take the breathaliser test." If it is positive, in accordance with section 34 of this Bill, the person is guilty of an offence which he did not commit. This is a bit totalitarian and I do not think the Constitution or the House can uphold it. I suggest that the section as it is put here is badly conceived, badly drafted, bad in its intention and bad in any interpretation that can be put on it. To my mind, it must be taken out.

In section 37 (3) we come to what the Minister should have done before he attempted to put such a drastic piece of legislation on the Statute Book. The section prescribes:

The Bureau may, from time to time, with the consent of the Minister, arrange for research into—

(a) the physical and mental fitness of drivers of vehicles,

(b) the medical aspects of road safety,

(c) the effects of the consumption of intoxicating liquor or the taking of drugs on drivers of vehicles and the methods of measuring such effects,

(d) the methods of determining the extent to which alcohol or drugs is or are present in a person's body.

(4) The Bureau may, with the consent of the Minister—

(a) arrange for the supply and testing of equipment or apparatus for the obtaining or testing of specimens of breath provided under this Part,

(b) render such assistance, whether financial or otherwise, as it thinks proper to persons carrying out or intending to carry out research of a kind which the Bureau is by this Act authorised to carry out.

If the provisions of that section had been in effect here for some time and if the things which the Bureau are empowered to do had been done and had the Minister been able to come here and say: "This research was carried out and these are my findings," excepting the conflict I see with the Constitution, I would be in favour of this Bill. These things have not been done and the only conclusion I can come to is that this particular part of the Bill is giving in to people who are seeking prohibition or total abstinence, and not for the purpose of increasing road safety.

Deputy Dillon dealt with section 41 at some length. I should like to know why this section was put in at all. Surely you cannot set up a Bureau like this, that may through some mistake or other or through its own inefficiency deprive a person of his character and of his livelihood and then say they cannot be held responsible. Section 41 would leave this Bureau in a position in which it could not be prosecuted and, therefore, it can be as irresponsible as it likes and there is nothing the man in the street can do about it.

That is what is in the Bill; but there are things which are not in the Bill and which I should like to see in it. However, there is one other thing to which I should like to refer first. It relates to the provision for restoration of licences by the Minister. I was opposed to this power of the Minister being taken out in the previous Road Traffic Bill. I thought it was a useful safeguard to have in legislation. I think, especially as I have not seen any newspaper since this morning, that if the leadership of the NFA agree to take up the offer of peace and new co-operation in their dispute with the law, the Minister can only restore the licences if this section is passed. Under the legislation we have, these licences cannot be restored after a period of six months.

(Cavan): The situation would only arise in case a Government completely mishandled the affairs of the country as this Government did.

I cannot discuss the affairs of the NFA, much as I would love to, on the Road Traffic Bill. If laws are prescribed under a Bill passed in this House, judges have discretion to impose sentences as they see fit. The Minister has no discretion to reverse the decision of the judges under existing legislation, unless this Bill is passed. If Deputy T.J. Fitzpatrick believes that the Minister should not have this power, let him say so and say so openly.

(Cavan): I have said it.

There are other instances, which have been referred to in the past, where this provision is necessary. It occurs to me that people engaged as professional drivers, van salesmen, commercial travellers, merchandisers, advertising agents, advance men, and so on, are dependent on their driving licences for their livelihood. They are all very much aware of that fact and these are the people who will be most careful not to take any chance that will lose them their driving licences. If a judge were confronted with one of these people, having committed an offence, and somebody else who is not dependent on a motor car for his livelihood and the judge imposes the same suspension on both of those people, the man who is dependent on that licence for his livelihood is, in effect, being fined £500 more than the other man and he certainly could not get a relief driver for anything under £14 to £15 a week. There would be an imbalance and, I think, from court to court different judges have different views. There should be a higher authority that could balance the weight of evidence and the weight of the effect of the sentence on the individual concerned. I am glad to see this section coming back and I support it absolutely.

That it is stiff is proven by the fact that over 50 per cent of new applicants for driving licences fail in their first attempt. It is right that this test should be stiff. This is the type of thing we should do first because it is the bad drivers who cause most accidents. Statistics show that less than three per cent of these accidents are caused by people under the influence of drink. That is the only statistic we have available. The relevant statistic in Northern Ireland is between three and four per cent. They have statistics there but we have none. The Bill is presented without statistics. However, the last we had was that less than three per cent of motor accidents are caused by people under the influence of drink.

Eventually, the new applicants get their licences and reach that degree of proficiency which I think, quite rightly, they should have. We let them out on the road where the vast majority of drivers would have no hope whatsoever of passing the test, never mind at the first attempt but even at their second or third attempt. The new drivers who have acquired the requisite degree of efficiency go out with the bad drivers and pick up all the bad habits and the object of this stiff test is defeated.

The Minister must take steps, under the regulations he can make under the previous Acts, to extend the area of driving tests. Let him do it by age groups, in alphabetical order, and so on, but the sooner every driver holds a licence which is up to the required standard of efficiency the sooner our accident rate will come down. Our accident rate is much lower than that of most other countries. It is probably only half the Northern Ireland accident rate.

Another consideration that must be taken up is the fact that when an insurance company is going to insure a driver for the first time, or on a change of company at some subsequent time, it does not ask him if he takes a drink but it asks him his age. In certain age groups, they impose a levy. They used also put a levy on actors, Jews and commercial travellers. The levy on actors and Jews has now been lifted but it remains for commercial travellers. I realise that country travellers have a greater road mileage but not city travellers. What we gather from the insurance companies is that we should be concerned with age groups. The insurance companies consider age significant while they do not consider the question of whether or not a man takes a drink significant in any insurance cover.

There is nothing in the Bill that I can see that deals with wandering animals. I think that wandering animals and unlit vehicles parked on the side of the road contribute very greatly to fatal accidents throughout this country. It is time very serious consideration and positive action were taken in respect of these two factors. This is a matter which has come up time and time again before the Irish Commercial Travellers Federation from the rank and file members for consideration by the executive. The executive has sought an interview with the Minister who has acknowledged by letter their representations but has not met them. People who are professionally required to drive in their jobs are concerned much more by wandering animals and unlit parked vehicles than they are about the remote danger of meeting an irresponsible drunken driver coming against them or getting in front of them.

I cannot agree with everything Deputy Dillon said. He was quite unkind to the Fianna Fáil Party, as such, in some of his remarks. However, in the more responsible part of his contribution, I agree almost entirely with what he said. If this Bill passes in its present form, it will be a matter for the Council of State and probably for the Supreme Court. Article 40 of the Constitution is quite precise. I cannot see how sections 27, 28 and 29 of this Bill could possibly be proven to comply with the terms of the Constitution.

I should like to refer to the study that has been carried out by a committee set up by the 18 nations of the Council of Europe. One of the points they noted is that unless a driving offence case goes to a higher court, very little note is taken of any record the person might have outside a driving record. If there is a minor sex case, note is taken of everything—of the person's mental condition, and so on. However, if there is a road accident, everything else does not matter very much. It is pointed out in this report that Doctor Selling in 1949 had a survey of 500 drink offences at the traffic court in Detroit. He found that only two per cent in these 500 cases were not suffering from some classifiable mental illness and that includes alcoholism, by the way—only two per cent. My complaint is that this type of research has not been done here. We cannot say that this would be the situation if such research were carried out in the Irish courts.

The Council of Europe Report says that there is a growing body of research which shows that some motoring offenders have characteristics that are typical of offenders whom we normally call criminals, namely, evidence of personality disturbance, poor school and employment records, unhappy marriages, previous convictions, possibly low intelligence and excessive contact with the rescue type of social service. This is a matter which I am sure the Minister did not take into consideration when he was farming this Bill. This is a report by a committee of 18 nations of Europe. They made this report for a very good reason—because, in 1964, 68,510 people were killed in these 18 countries and 1,840,910 injured. The economic losses caused by traffic accidents correspond roughly to between one and 1.5 per cent of the gross national product of most European countries. So, as I say, the Council of Europe realise the great loss that traffic accidents cause both economically and in terms of human suffering.

I do not believe that the provisions in this Bill, when enacted, will help the situation. As I said earlier today, in countries on the Continent, where they have breathaliser tests, blood tests, and so on, the record of accidents is far worse than it is here. It would be much better for them to adopt our present system which, in my view, if applied correctly, is adequate to deal with any problem we might have in this regard.

It transpired in the research of the Council of Europe that there is a growing number of people driving vehicles without a licence and without insurance because they are unable to procure the driving licence. They instance the case of a young boy who has got his first autobike or motor cycle. This machine is his very life. He commits an offence and is debarred from cycling for a year or two years. Can anybody reasonably expect that that boy, if he gets the opportunity, will not take out that bicycle and cycle it again? These are matters that should be considered. In our laws and in all our approach to this whole problem, the emphasis is on deterrents and retribution. The European committee claims that the emphasis should be on reformation. That is the key word, "reformation," not as is provided here, deterrents and retribution.

There is one other aspect which is important and which should be examined by the Minister, that is, that there should be a medical examination for applicants for driving licences. Experts of the Council of Europe agree that if there were such a check-up, the number of accidents would most likely be greatly reduced. This examination would naturally reveal any infirmities that might lead to accidents. These experts also state that applicants for driving licences, after their test, should be told of any infirmities that might make driving more dangerous for them than for other people. A candidate for a driving licence would have to be told, for instance, if he had a tendency to epilepsy, which has been the cause of a number of accidents.

Apparently the only thing we, the drunken Irish, can suffer from in this country is too much drink and that is all we have to safeguard against. In Europe, it has been recognised that infirmities such as epilepsy have been as great a cause of accidents as other factors. I opened with a quotation from ancient times and I would like to conclude also with a thought from ancient times. It is from Polypus who said in 125 BC: "A statesman who is ignorant of the way in which things originate is like a physician who does not know the cause of the disease which he tries to cure". The Minister does not know the cause of the disease which he is trying to cure and therefore does not know how to cure it.

But for the fact that the issue at stake here is the saving of life, the contributions of the last two Deputies could be described as hilariously funny. I have not heard anything as funny for years as the remarks of Deputy Dillon and Deputy Lemass about the effects there might be on unfortunate rich old ladies who might be seriously discommoded if they were found drunk in charge of a car. These Deputies feel that it would be just too bad if these rich old ladies should be put to the indignity of doing certain things which would not be wrong at all if they were to apply to what Deputy Dillon calls a coal heaver from the East Wall. How foolish or stupid can we get in this House?

This Bill is a definite attempt to cure or prevent a serious social evil and the comment made by Deputy Lemass that some kind of pressure group is being built up by the anti-drink people to force the Dáil to take certain measures is too stupid for words. I am a Pioneer but that does not mean that I object to anybody else taking drink. If people want to drink and can afford it, that is their business. Nobody I know of in the non-drinking organisations has any objection to people drinking in their own time, if they do not make a nuisance of themselves outside this House or inside it, but when they do indulge and try to force their views on everybody else, we are all inclined to take umbrage.

Part V of the Bill lays down that a person found in possession of a car and showing evidence of driving erratically may be asked to take a breath test. Apparently Deputy Lemass does not know that the results of this breath test is not evidence of an offence in a court of law. If the breath test gives a certain reaction the Garda are entitled to ask that that person go to the local Garda station and have further tests carried out, either by the police doctor or by the person's own doctor. Deputy Dillon's harrowing description of the unfortunate who may have a Baby Power and a small syphon in his car, who has a crash and ends up unconscious, and is then dragged into the local Garda barracks instead of to a hospital is too ridiculous for words.

That sort of overplaying of an argument does not do any good. I believe that this test is, if anything, a limited test. The allowance of 125 milligrammes of alcohol to each 100 millilitres of blood is quite generous. Deputy Lemass does not even appreciate the fact that what he argues should be in the Bill is, in fact, in it. The person who is able to take more drink than another person is subject to this particular test. Deputy Lemass seems to ignore that and to be under the impression that whether a big man or a small man takes a drink, the same result would follow from the same quantity of alcohol. This is completely ridiculous.

I was amazed at the faith which Deputy Lemass seemed to have in random cuttings from various newspapers and magazines, including The Licensed Vintner. He seemed to think that these quotations were absolute proof of his argument and ignored the fact that the Minister said:

The necessity for the amendment of the Road Traffic Act of 1961 arises mainly out of the report of the Commission on driving while under the influence of drink or a drug which was presented to my predecessor in 1963.

The Minister goes on to give the information that Judge Davitt, President of the High Court, was Chairman of that Commission and that it was established in 1961. Deputy Lemass apparently did not hear that, did not read it and does not know it. Deputy Lemass was apparently under the impression that this was something that should not be done, that no research into the matter had been undertaken. That seems to me to be somewhat foolish. For somebody of Deputy Lemass's standing, it was worse than foolish.

There seems to be a rash of references to the constitutional issue at the present time. We will need to be very careful on the questions we put down because I have no doubt, a Minister will get up and refuse to answer a question on the ground that it impinges on the constitutional rights of some individual or Deputy. The dire threats to the Minister of referring this to God knows whom were just a little bit silly. Either we are going through with this or not. If we feel strongly enough about it, we will vote for or against it. We introduce amendments if we are allowed and, if we are not allowed, we should keep our mouths shut. That is my attitude to it.

As to the suggestion that in the case of a driver who had been out in a car and had gone home and in his own home consumed liquor, a guard could come in within three hours and say, "I heard you were driving erratically and I am taking you to the station for a blood test", that is not provided for in the Bill. If it is, I cannot find it. We will see. As far as I can find, Deputy Noel Lemass's interpretation on that issue is entirely wrong. If a person is found in charge of a car, he can be taken to the station but there is no suggestion that he can be arrested in his own home afterwards on some anonymous report that something happened several hours earlier. I think that is not in the Bill. If it is in it, it should be taken out, but I do not believe that it is in the Bill.

We do tend to stick to Part 5 because it appears that we think the Bill was brought in for the purposes of Part V. There are quite a number of important issues covered in the Bill but there are a number of important matters that are omitted and which, in my view, should have been included.

There were references to the question of drivers' licences and the tests which should be carried out. I was intrigued by Deputy Lemass's suggestion. Having said that it was a desperate thing to take a driver's licence away from somebody on suspicion that he was drunk, he followed that up by saying that everyone should have a medical test in addition to a driving test and if the licence was taken on medical grounds, that was all right. I do not agree that the driving test at the present time is fair. I believe that the people carrying out the driving test are not doing a good job; they are doing a damn bad job. I say that because of the fact that numerous people have been failed the test because they used the mechanical signalling devices on their vehicles and did not use hand signals. Who uses hand signals? Does the Minister's driver use hand signals? Does anybody here use hand signals? It is absolutely ridiculous to continue to fail people for not using signals which are absolutely out. We are back in the Stone Age. We might as well say that a man should be failed because he had not a whip to crack out of the window to show that he was in control of the ten or 12 horses, as was the practice when driving first started.

There is another thing I consider to be awfully stupid and about which the Minister even at this late stage might do something. His predecessor said that the first opportunity he would get he would try to have it remedied. Somebody applies for a provisional licence and gets it and while in possession of it, his wife or mother or girl friend asks: "Why do you not apply for a test? You will pass the test easily." He puts it on the long finger. Eventually the wife, mother or lady friend makes application in the person's name. He passes the test. He knows all the answers. He is refused the licence because, when he comes to sign the document, the signature is not the same as the signature on the application form. Could anything be more ridiculous? It should be quite easy for the examiner to say: "Let me see your provisional licence, which is signed", and if the signature on the provisional licence is the same as the signature on the document stating that he has passed the test, that should end the difficulty. It seems very stupid that a person should be refused a licence because of the fact that the signature on the application form is not his signature. The original application may have been sent in as a matter of form and could be typed or printed, for that matter.

There is another feature, showing how unfair driving tests are. I have had half a dozen cases where people have been driving lorries for years as a means of livelihood. Deputy Lemass spoke about the number of people abroad, particularly in England, driving without a licence. A number of people had been for many years driving them on licence and had renewed the licence and eventually it was forgotten about. When a bit of tightening up started they discovered that it was five years since the last licence was issued and that they must do a test. Just imagine the reaction of a man who had been driving a ten-ton truck for 30 years and never had an accident when some whippersnapper driving tester tells him that he cannot drive even a two-ton truck. I know of one case where a man with a wife and nine children to support lost his job because the driving tester said he was not able to drive. There are other cases where a man does a driving test and the truck he uses is a two-ton truck and because it is under two tons five cwts. he cannot drive a three-ton truck and subsequently has to do another test, and all this sort of nonsense.

While I agree that it was right that some type of test should have been introduced, the matter is not being handled properly and will have to be regularised. Teething troubles can cause queer things to happen but we should be over the teething troubles by now. To try to lay down the law in the way in which it is laid down is not correct.

A number of references were made to the question as to whether or not the Minister has the right to restore licences. Personally, I disagree with the right of a Minister to restore a driver's licence because the Minister is leaving himself open, rightly or wrongly, to suspicion of political patronage. If a man who belongs to the Minister's Party succeeds in getting his licence back while a neighbour who does not belong to the Party, who loses his licence for some trivial matter, does not get it back, that will cause a lot of talk. Ministers may not mind what people say about them.

I saw an extraordinary thing happening recently. I am not going to talk about the NFA, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, in case you think I am, but I saw a group of farmers going into court and, because of a certain manoeuvre they carried out on one day, losing their drivers' licences and in the same court was a young brat who, some weeks previously, had been arrested for driving an untaxed, uninsured car, with no brakes and practically nothing on it. He had no driver's licence. The driver's licence, which he had not got, was taken from him and he was suspended for 12 months. A few weeks afterwards he stole a car, crashed two other cars with the stolen car. The Guards found him and he smashed up the car he had stolen. He said he had had drink. Possibly that was the reason for the accidents. He was taken into court with the farmers and had his licence suspended again and was sentenced to nine months in St. Patrick's. One week afterwards I saw that young man driving a car around the country—the same car in respect of which he was charged, with no tax, insurance, or anything else. Is it any wonder that some people say there is a peculiar type of administration of law in this country?

Deputy Lemass referred to the question of the sergeant prosecuting some friend of his and stopping him every time he passed through. I find it very hard to believe that. If anyone I know had that type of experience, of a guard persecuting him, I would settle it very quickly. I would go to either the superintendent or the Minister and I would tell the sergeant or guard that first. I simply do not believe that a member of the Force would go to the trouble of trying to work out some kind of vendetta on an individual. If he is doing it, he must be extremely stupid.

Deputy Dillon, in particular, referred to the fact that this Bill was going to give to the Garda the power to haul in unsuspecting persons to the barracks, that people were going to be dragged into the barracks on some pretence. I do not think that that is going to happen. We have a very poor idea of our Garda if we believe they are going to do that. That should not be considered at all. Incidentally, Deputy Lemass referred to pedestrians and he was very agreeable to the idea that the pedestrian who was caught under the influence should experience the full rigour of the law and it seemed to follow that when a pedestrian gets into a car, he is a different sort of animal and should be exempt. As long as he is on his two feet, he should not be allowed to move around and any penalty that could be imposed on him should be imposed on him. I agree with Deputy Lemass and Deputy Dillon about the man who has had a few drinks and goes into the back of his car to sleep them off. I do not think it is right that a man should be taken as being in charge of a vehicle because he does this and be charged with driving or attempting to drive dangerously. It is far better that he should do this than go into the front of the car and drive off and possibly hit something on the way.

I also agree with Deputy Lemass about this question of animals. For the past 12 or 18 months, it seems that there have been more stray animals on the road than there have been for many years. There should be a special section to deal with this problem. In my own constituency, two young men returning home after a dance struck two wandering horses. It was bad enough that the owner of the car was killed but it was worse that the owner of the horses had the neck to sue the unfortunate family of the boy who was killed and got a decree for £160 because the horses were killed. This problem should be dealt with in some way and the Minister now has the ball at his feet and should deal with it within this Bill.

The question of unsafe vehicles is mentioned in the Bill and I agree that it is long after the time when dealers should be allowed to sell unsafe vehicles. It is long past the time when a dealer, whether he be a garage owner or some kind of secondhand car dealer, should be allowed to sell to some unsuspecting person a car which has no brakes, or which may have defective steering, or other defects which are likely to cause accidents. I am satisfied from my own observation—and I travel more than practically any other Deputy because I drive over 1,000 miles a week—that time and again accidents are caused by the use of defective vehicles, by using vehicles which perhaps have bad tyres, or faulty steering, or no brakes, or bad lighting. People seem to be able to get away with this all the time. The way to stop it is to get at the source and the people who sell such vehicles should be liable to punishment. If they were, there would be fewer defective vehicles on the road.

The Minister made a very long speech and I listened to the whole 38 pages of it, which included the one in Irish at the front. It was quite an ordeal for the Minister and I can assure him that it was a great ordeal for those who were listening and that is no reflection on the Minister.

I thought it was very helpful.

It was quite an ordeal to listen to that long speech. While it was very important that the matters in it should be covered fully, I still believe there was a lot of repetition. In the Bill there is a reference to abandoned vehicles. Abandoned vehicles have been a bone of contention with local authorities over the years, and nowhere more than in this city. One can look down practically any street in the city and see a vehicle abandoned on the side of it. I had an experience some months ago in regard to a vehicle which was abandoned near my office. Somebody threw a lighted match or a lighted cigarette into the vehicle and it took two sections of the Fire Brigade to put out the fire. A number of the cars which were parked close to it did not benefit as a result of the conflagration. I understand that there is likely to be a claim for malicious damage to the vehicle concerned, although the tyres were gone and practically everything that could have been lifted off it had been taken by passers-by. People who do not want these cars just push them into the side of the road and leave them there. It is about time the necessary action was taken. Those vehicles can be identified if the necessary steps are taken and if a few people were prosecuted, it would probably put an end to the practice which should be stopped.

There is also a reference to the appointment of wardens. I would be very careful about giving wardens the right to inflict fines on the spot. It is one thing to have the police doing this, but if every Tom, Dick and Harry who has a warden's uniform on is put in the position that he can fine people for parking or some such offence, then quite an amount of resentment is likely to grow up towards those people. The Minister should have another look at this before he puts it into operation. I agree that it is rather a pity that garda who have been trained to do a special job should be wasting their time on traffic work, but at the same time, this is something which cannot be allowed to get out of hand.

There is also a reference to compulsory insurance and something which has been drawn to my attention on several occasions recently is the tendency by people, when a State vehicle is involved in an accident, to be very chary about taking any action against the State. Most people seem to feel that it is a question of going to court with the devil and holding court in hell, that they have not a hope of winning the case. There have been a number of cases where people had very valid claims but because the people on the other side were the State and the case could be defended with unlimited money many cases were dropped. I know of one case which involved a little boy who was knocked down by an Army lorry and his bicycle was smashed. He has been attending hospital and his father, who is a butcher with a small income, has been paying a weekly amount to the local hospital for attention to him. The only reason no case is being taken is that they feel the State cannot be contested and that it would simply mean that they would not win it.

There is a reference in the Bill to the weight of vehicles and the damage done to roads. I am glad that something is being done about this because it is a very cumbersome job to try to get the people whose vehicles do the damage to roads, and particularly to road bridges, to meet their responsibilities. The fact is that up to now it has simply been the weight of the lorry or the vehicle that was counted and the wheel base was not taken into account, which meant that some huge lorries were allowed to operate and to do very great damage without any hope of recovering compensation from the firm concerned. I am glad that something is being done, but I am not satisfied that this will go the whole way towards what should be done. It is an attempt to remedy a rather awkward situation.

The Bill is quite complicated and I am sure there will be a very interesting discussion on it during Committee Stage. Up to the present most speakers have referred almost entirely to the drunken driving section. As a driver, I think it is time something was done to prevent the present situation from getting worse. Deputy Lemass referred to the fact that according to statistics taken some time ago—and the Minister says they were abandoned because they do not truly interpret the position—only three per cent of the accidents in this country were accidents involving drink. That represents a very high number of people. I believe that even one life is very important, and if these regulations would save even one life only, they would be very well worthwhile.

Deputy Lemass spoke about the accident rate in this country vis-á-vis other countries but I think he forgot the density of vehicles. I understand that in Britain the rate would be one vehicle to 15 feet of road if all the vehicles were on the roads. Here the rate is one vehicle to something like one mile or 1½ miles of road. If that is true, I can understand why there are more accidents in Britain. That did not seem to strike Deputy Lemass as an argument which might affect the issue. Even if our roads are still relatively traffic-free, if we keep on at the present accident rate, it will be only a relatively short number of years until everyone in the country will have met with an accident. That is a sobering thought. When you divide the number of people who have met with accidents on the roads into the population, you find that within a relatively short time everyone will have been hit by something.

The Minister should also include the question of traffic control in this Bill. Even with a relatively free flow of traffic at present, unnecessary congestion is caused by the use of the roads in a certain way. I travel a good deal on the Dublin-Belfast road and even within the city precincts, without going outside at all, it is not unusual to find someone with a slow-moving vehicle driving along the centre of a four lane road. Unless you break the law by passing inside him, there is no other way of getting by. It is quite usual in the evening going out of town to find a queue of vehicles half a mile long driving behind some stupid person who insists on having his right-hand wheel on the white line in the centre of the road.

There used to be people called "courtesy cops". The motor cycle police do not seem to consider it necessary to talk to such a driver or, if there are a number of slow-moving vehicles, to attempt to get them into a lay-by until the faster traffic goes by. This is done in other countries and there is no reason why it should not be done here. We have some heavily-laden lorries, but most of those drivers seem to have much better road manners—and a lot of the accidents go back to road manners—than other types of people. There are some people who insist on driving in the centre of the road and using far more of the road than they are entitled to.

Despite the fact that the people who do the tests for the driving licences insist that hand-signals should be used, most drivers of motor vehicles on our roads give no signals at all, good, bad or indifferent. They just cut in and out any way they like. It should be an offence to move from one lane to another without giving the proper signal. The Minister might consider including these items in some section of the Bill. It is six years since we had the last Bill of this type. The Minister rather apologised for introducing another Bill within such a short time, which suggests that it may be quite a long time before the next Bill is introduced. That being so, there is no reason why he should not attempt to include all the loose ends in this Bill.

To go back to what seems to be considered the kernel of the Bill, the question of testing for drunken driving is tied up, in my opinion, with the question of whether or not the person concerned was driving erratically before the garda stopped him. I remember some years ago when there was a court case in which a man was charged with hitting another vehicle. After he had been charged, someone was produced who swore that he had been driving up on the bank half a mile away from where the accident occurred. This was ruled out as being irrelevant and having nothing to do with the case. I thought at the time that it had a lot to do with it, because it proved the man had been driving erratically before the accident occurred. If the type of test which is now suggested had been in operation then, there would have been no doubt about the result.

There was another case recently in which a boy, who, as they say where I live, has not a whole shilling, had a motor scooter. He had no tax, no insurance, and no driver's licence. He collided with another motor vehicle and he insisted that a garda should be sent for. When the gardaí came, they did not charge him. The man who was driving the vehicle had a few drinks taken and he lost his licence for 12 months and he lost his job for good—and a good job he had. These are matters which have to be taken into consideration when a Road Traffic Bill is being considered.

The Minister may say that the administration of the Bill will be the responsibility of another Minister, but he must see to it that the highest possible standards are included in the Bill. I would seriously say to him that the comments of Deputy Dillon and Deputy Lemass, who seemed to find common ground against the Bill, would suggest that he should discount their arguments. It appeared as if they were speaking for some type of group, not exactly a pressure group, who think they are entitled to be heard but are not prepared to agree that the other side of the story should be heard.

As I said at the start, as a Pioneer, I have no objection to people drinking. I do not mind a man drinking if he wants to, but if he does he should not get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle after taking a lot of drink.

The last speaker rightly remarked that this Bill is not solely concerned with Part V. There are other very important provisions in it. I propose to deal with Part V when I come to it in its order. There can be no doubt that we need to reconsider this problem of the roads. There can also be no doubt that the Minister is fulfilling his ministerial duties only in bringing this provision before the House. Furthermore, in the very nature of this type of legislation, there must be discussion on it and it would be rather extraordinary—in fact, it would be very disturbing—if a Bill of this nature were to pass through the House without having the benefit of some amendments arising from the discussion. I am pretty certain that will happen in the case of this Bill.

However, let us be clear in our minds as to what is the purpose of the Bill and ask ourselves, first of all, are we for or against it? That is the real function of the Second Stage; we go into details on the Committee Stage. Let us ask ourselves, therefore, should provisions be made on the general lines of this Bill? We are all agreed that the general provisions relating to vehicles call for review. Part I is Preliminary and General. So far as I have looked through Part II, it seems to me to be a Committee Bill, and we can deal with any problems arising there in Committee. All that is necessary to say on this Stage is that the approach to this legislation is to be welcomed, that if we are going to provide for the future, some move in these directions is necessary.

Before leaving Part II, a few general remarks might be in order. I agree with Deputy Tully it is dangerous to consider that, because we have at the present moment a relatively low accident rate, the problem is not as important here as elsewhere. Deputy Tully has drawn attention to traffic density. This is a great social problem. With the increasing number of motor cars, when indeed the motor car is rapidly becoming a necessity for the individual this problem will grow. There is going to be a further aggravation of the problems which are already there: the problems of traffic control, traffic flow, road safety, vehicle disposal and vehicle maintenance. All these problems are inescapable in front of us and now is the time to consider them. The Minister was being unnecessarily apologetic in bringing in this Bill. As I see it this problem is likely to grow until it reaches saturation and at that stage if we are doing our duty as representatives of the people, we must be prepared, by legislation, to cope with the problems as they arise. This is a subject on which one cannot hope to legislate finally and to say: "That is done for good." Changing circumstances will evolve here and with these changing circumstances legislation will have to evolve.

Part III of the Bill deals with driving licences. This is essentially an amending part and it raises some interesting points some of which have been raised already. It is very necessary that all new applicants for licences should be competent. It is not a question of the better way; there does not seem to be any other way than to have some system of controlled tests. That in itself creates problems. The problems that will be involved here will be the type of problems that should be involved in policing generally, the type of problems involved in the courts where one human being has to make decisions for another.

In this regard I should like to make a couple of suggestions to the Minister. I should like to emphasise they are merely personal opinions. Sometimes we are inclined to be dogmatic about our personal opinions and fail to differentiate between what is just an opinion and what is a grounded argument. For that reason, with a certain amount of deference I make the following statements.

There is always the danger that people carrying out examinations will be hidebound by certain formalities of procedure. They must be bound by procedure to some extent, but they may be so bound that they lose sight of what they are after. It is most important for people who are testing for driving licences never to lose sight of the fact that it is not a mark-scoring competition but that they are really there to find out if the applicant is competent physically and technically safely to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on the road as a normal unit in the traffic flow. The important point is to see that they are competent drivers and not that they are erudite in a number of disjointed rules. It is perfectly conceivable—and this is a defect in all examination systems but we cannot do without examinations—that a person can be very glib in doctrinal details and deficient in essential knowledge or skill. I should like the Minister, in so far as that aspect can be emphasised— this is an administrative rather than a legislative matter—to bring home the importance of that point. I was tempted to deal with that by Deputy Tully's reference to hand signals. Deputy Tully should be aware that hand signals may be most essential in certain circumstances.

I for one would be prepared to listen to the people who have studied the matter more closely and who have more experience, but I would suggest that co-relative with ensuring that the people who test are testing for the essential—I am always assuming that there is no prejudice or anything like that—we must ensure the competence of those organisations that have been brought into being by legislation, that is the schools of motoring. A school of motoring can be a very excellent thing. It is very proper that if we are going to have driving tests there should be some institutions available for training people. For that very reason these institutions are of interest to the Minister and to all who are concerned with this subject. However, there should be some approach to seeing that there is a uniformity of doctrine, if I may say so, that the same spirit animates these schools as well as the testers. There is one danger in it. These schools will be commercial enterprises. There can be certain drawbacks in approaching the matter from that point of view but, on the whole, it is preferable that they should operate in that way, rather than that they should be in any way State controlled, or anything like that. The important thing is that these schools should be in reality schools designed to fit the driver into the scheme of traffic. They should form an effective part of our attack on what has now become a serious social problem.

Any further detailed comments on this can, perhaps, be better made on Committee Stage but, just as it is right to consider the whole question of vehicles in Part II, so in Part III, in relation to driving licences, after the experience we have had, it is right to consider this question of the attitude of testers. I have no grounds for making complaint here. The approach of schools of motoring to the problem is of no little importance. I drive a great deal. I have driven for quite a long time. I am impressed as a driver by some of the younger people who have taken up driving in the last year or so. I put that down to the good influence of training. One notices amongst the younger drivers a certain uniformity of good practice, something that did not evolve by accident, and I can only suspect that this is one of the beneficial effects of our earlier legislation in this regard. It is a matter, I think, of reasonable approach. Here, again, I am tempted to agree with Deputy Tully. It is better for us to look at all this from the point of view of preparation of the driver for the road, of preserving safety through traffic control and proper procedures, rather than relying on penalties and deterrents, although these will also be necessary.

I come now to Part III. This Part raises for me, and for a number of Deputies to whom I have talked, a rather fundamental problem and one which is not easy of solution. Indeed, it is even difficult to state it for the reason that the very stating of it may seem to imply some failure on the part of someone or other charged with a duty. I want to make it quite clear at the outset that anything I say in this regard is said with a complete understanding of the various people who are confronted by the problem. Realising that then, we have, I think, to try to see how we will help these people to face these problems. The people primarily concerned are the Garda. As Deputy Larkin said the other night, and quite rightly, we have too small a force available to cope with essential traffic problems. We are, perhaps, dissipating the energies of the Garda on incidental problems. If that is so— I am afraid it is—the question is how are we going to effect economy of force and how are we going to get maximum efficiency? It seems to me that our approach must be conditioned by two considerations. First of all, let us get our priorities right. What are the priorities? Where are we going to concentrate? Secondly, having regard to the available administrative forces, including the police force, how are they to be disposed in accordance with our priorities?

With regard to priorities—I shall refer to this again on Part V—we should, I think, ask ourselves what are the real problems on the road? Is it the maintenance of speed limits? Is that a priority? Is it a question of traffic flow and, as Deputy Tully indicated, regulating traffic? Is it a problem of the drunken driver? Is it the problem of the parked vehicle? Is it the problem of the animal? All these are problems. Where are we to start? We cannot make a major isolated attack on all simultaneously with any degree of success. Let us be practical. Let us take, first of all, the question of speed limits. As I said, my comments are being made without any reflection whatever on the forces involved in maintaining these.

After the last Act, there was a rash of speed limit signs, particularly in the city of Dublin. These are very important in certain places. For instance, the 40 mph limits in the environs of the city were not only necessary but beneficial. The same is probably true of speed limits in country towns between faster stretches. However, take this city: from Ballsbridge and corresponding areas in, there is a speed limit of 30 mph. How many people are keeping to that speed limit of 30 mph? I have experimented a little for some time with this. I find that at 30 mph, I run a grave risk, particularly if there are cars parked, of being the slow driver holding up everything. Secondly, the number of vehicles which pass me out are flouting the law. They are a reflection on the law. The law is flagrantly broken. Whether we like it or not, we have a situation in which a speed limit of 30 mph in the city of Dublin is being broken with utter regularity. Occasionally the police, when they can get a stretch, try to control it. Mark you, it is not easy to control it, especially when there are cars parked at the side.

By and large, that speed limit is being violated and we have the very undesirable situation in which citizens are habitually breaking the law. When that is done, the law immediately comes into disrepute. That is something to which we must have regard in this House. I am speaking now only of the city of Dublin. In many of the speed limit areas of 30 mph, traffic will not go unduly fast and any vehicle that exceeds it is doing something which is obviously dangerous and the driver of the vehicle is driving dangerously. It is not merely a question of 30 mph.

Take, for instance, a car coming down Northumberland Road, which has a 30 mph limit. Most vehicles in the normal flow of traffic will run in or about that, maybe up to 35 mph or maybe, in other circumstances, down to 20 mph. The general flow of traffic will be such as to control itself, with the result that anyone driving dangerously will be as dangerous at 30 mph as he is at 40 mph. That is essentially a separate offence. I ask myself in such a situation, again confining myself to Dublin and the centres of other cities and towns, whether such low speed limits are helpful or desirable. They are undesirable if they are not capable of being enforced. They are undesirable from two points of view—as giving an impossible problem to the Garda and inducing the citizen to break the law. Inevitably, there will be an unjust consequence because sometimes—occasionally it does happen— the Garda in an effort to perform their duty, catch somebody—and that is just a poor unfortunate who is caught.

There is a problem in regard to speed limits. One Deputy suggested there should be an overall fairly high speed limit for the whole country. It is absolutely necessary in certain small towns and villages, where the main road runs through the centre of the town, to have speed limits. I can think of certain such towns, but they are not in my constituency and I will not presume to name them. It may well be that in such cases the limit should be down to 30 mph. But, in the main, these are towns you approach from a fast stretch and go away from into a fast stretch. As I say, a speed limit there is a necessity, but it is also relatively easily enforceable. If discrimination is used in matters of this sort, the guards' problem is made a practical one.

As far as Dublin is concerned—and the same may apply to the centres of the bigger cities and towns—the actual speed of traffic itself will exercise a control. Therefore, the speed limits there can be higher or more average. The guards, if necessary, can be further empowered to deal with the irresponsible person who drives regardless. I realise that the matters I am dealing with now can provoke a debate, but, from a certain amount of experience, I put that aspect forward to the Minister. The indiscriminate labelling of speed limits by local authorities can be a disadvantage.

Basic to all this is the question: is speed the problem? My own view is that speed can very well be a problem. I believe speed is often a big element in accidents and that it will be necessary to control it. Therefore, speed limits for stretches and zones will be necessary and must be maintained. But, if we are to maintain them, there must be an adequate force of gardaí to deal with them. This brings us to what is in many ways the kernel of the problem. I agree with the Minister, and I think any other Dublin Deputy will agree, too, that it is undesirable—I mentioned this on the Estimate for the Department of Justice—to have highly skilled and trained gardaí wasting their time, if you like, going around putting tickets on windscreens. It is a waste of trained resources. It also is bad in a subtle way for the image of the Garda with the citizens. Some systems of wardens or auxiliary force should be added to that.

Look at the parking problem here in the city. That is tied up with the whole question of traffic flow. In certain areas—Merrion Square, for instance, just outside the House—it is not a question of parking but a question of double parking. You will find people temporarily double parking and blocking the traffic. Any one vehicle may move on in a minute but, as soon as it does, there is another to take its place. While this is going on, you have around the corner in a side street the two guards for the area completely absorbed booking numbers for parking.

Incidentally, this is also tied up with the experiments made in regard to freeway runs in Dublin. I would like if the Minister would give us some information as to how that has been working. Traffic flow, as I said, is like the flow of electricity—you have to consider the complete flow pattern. There will be some parts of that flow —through arteries—which are wide enough to take parked cars and there will be other parts which need every inch of the carriageway to keep the flow going. That is a planning problem that only the people who have studied it and worked out a scheme for the whole area can answer. Therefore, there is not much use in my pursuing it here.

Complementary to that there is the question of the driver. Therefore, having dealt with what our attitude to speed limits should be, what about the general competency, courtesy and order of the driver? We will be coming in a moment to Part V of the Bill which deals with other offences. Where do we stand with the driver? It is very clear that part of the congestion of the traffic in this city at peak hours is due to the fact that Dublin drivers do not seem to understand properly the concept of lane traffic. The layout of our city is difficult enough. Very often you meet the type of driver Deputy Tully mentioned, the driver who is, perhaps, too cautious and too slow, the driver who stops at the traffic lights and waits until the green is fully on before he wakes up to make a move with his gear lever, the driver who weaves from one lane to another because he thinks he will make progress, the driver who lies in on the left-hand side, although he knows in a few hundred yards he is going to turn out to the right.

This kind of thing, more than anything, is our traffic problem in the city. How can we deal with the individual driver and the by-no-means criminallyminded driver? I am sure many Deputies have noticed this sort of thing. Suppose you are seven or eight vehicles back at the traffic lights. You watch the lights, and if you have a stop watch, you could see how long it would be before you could allow your vehicle to move after the light has gone green. It is a very interesting experiment because it will show what time blocks can take place in traffic. Almost invariably you find that you are a considerable time stopped before you can move your vehicle because the car in front of you has not moved because the car in front of it has not moved. Although there is bound to be some time lag, it is often out of proportion to what it should be. Why? Because drivers wait; they are not alert; they wait until the green is fully on and go through the whole process of becoming conscious of it, putting the car into gear and letting out the clutch, or if it is automatic, it does not seem to be very much quicker. Then they drive off. Then, there is the question of acceleration.

Although it might be very good practice from the point of view of vehicle maintenance, I wonder in the teaching schools which I mentioned, are people being taught that they should not make the moves to start until they see the green light? One would imagine the driver waiting with his clutch out and his car in gear. Is there something in our doctrines that needs to be looked at? There may be something here concerned with mechanical maintenance which conflicts with what I am suggesting. However, it serves to illustrate the point that traffic flow problems are not, I submit, problems of speed mainly. As I shall say on Part V, they are not mainly problems of drink. Even the safety angle of it can be traced to pedestrians running out or drivers not being alert and running into the back of somebody else's car.

For instance, this morning I noticed a driver in front who was chatting to a companion and was slow at the traffic lights. A car behind nearly ran into her. She was slow in starting and the other driver had obviously become impatient and cut out on the inside, like Deputy Tully's driver, and there was nearly a brush between the two vehicles because he kept going and she kept going, and then he cut out in front of her. It was an interesting case because it was hard to see how you could apportion blame. The blame essentially on the first driver was the irritation of the second driver caused by a certain lack of skill. He was, probably, from the legal point of view, the more culpable.

That is an instance of the type of problem with which we have to deal. There is only one way of dealing with it and as I see it, it is (a) by education and (b) by proper policing. You can only have proper policing if you have sufficient gardaí free to concentrate on the job. You cannot expect a garda to keep the whole Statute Book in mind and enforce all of it simultaneously. He must get some practical help and direction as to what the priorities are and he must have sufficient support. He must not be asked to do too big a job. I am using that to reinforce the argument for liberating as many of our gardaí as possible to do essential jobs and getting non-essential jobs done by auxiliaries, if possible. There, I am completely behind the Minister. Here also the question of the strength of the Force and the type of gardaí needed arises. The gardaí needed for this work are motor cycle and ordinary gardaí.

Another thing that strikes me as regards the policing of our roads is this: too often at peak hours now we find our patrols completely immobilised. The habit seems to be growing of adopting the practice very largely at certain traffic control points of a motorised garda coming along and immobilising himself and taking control of the traffic point. Is that the wisest way of disposing of him? I am still talking of Dublin and its surroundings, the part of the country I know most about. During non-peak hours, there is least need for detailed policing when in fact the only thing that goes wrong is the fellow who is positively a criminal and should be locked up in any case. It is a matter of chance whether he is caught or not.

At peak hour, there is need for these gardaí to be present and perhaps by driving along to correct motoring faults. I also think motorised gardaí should be close by at peak hours to assist the pointsmen. We still leave the whole load to the pointsmen and I have seen a pointsman placed at one junction in this city but, in effect, controlling a complex. For instance, you will find a garda at the south or east side of Leeson Street Bridge at peak hours controlling the traffic and very often he is assisted by a motorised man at the end of Fitzwilliam Street. Very often, there is no assistance and the unfortunate pointsman on the far side of the bridge has to control the whole complex. It is quite a task. Frequently, one finds the same thing on both sides of Ballsbridge.

Traffic lights are not the complete answer; they are very useful and fulfil a great function. They are generally successful but they require the supervision of a human brain sometimes at certain points at peak hours. It is very gratifying to find that the young trained gardaí are up to the standard of their predecessors and are very good at traffic control. Considering their numbers, they are extraordinarily good at it, but my point is that the men actually on point duty at this critical period need supplementation by their motorised colleagues. I shall not try to develop the argument any further because, frankly, I do not feel I am expert enough or competent enough to analyse a problem like that in detail. I have no doubt those with more experience than I have would have arious criticisms and answers to what I have said. I am content to have raised the problem.

I should be content to raise the problem and, as in other matters here, I am very content to take the Minister's answers in these matters because, after all, we should realise the Minister is in the best place to have all the best advice available on these matters. We can help with our discussion, but it is no harm for all Deputies to realise prima facie the Minister in charge of a measure is better informed and more likely to have the answers than we, especially in matters of this nature. It is in this spirit I mention this to the Minister.

While I am on this question of police control, or re-enforcement of the law, I now come to a fundamental question for the discussion of Part V—and indeed for all legislation which proposes to affect the organisation of our lives as a community. It is time we asked ourselves in this Parliament how far we are legislating ahead of our ability to enforce. I have given, for instance, an example with regard to speed limits. We have legislated for speed limits. We have gone in and done all this but the performance is, as I have said, what counts. Perhaps in the Bill, therefore, we are too ambitious. In legislating for all sorts of situations and crimes that may take place—and indeed some that are likely to take place—are we sure we can enforce properly what we intend to do, or is there a certain danger that our legislation may degenerate into some kind of eyewash?

The classic example, of course, of that in the old days is the famous licensing laws which are now largely gone. The licensing laws were very admirable from the point of view of certain reformers, were maintained very strongly on all sorts of moral and other grounds, but the fact was those licensing laws did not command, to the depth they were expressed to command, the sympathy and backing of the community as a whole and they largely became pious frauds. Now we have got away from that and we have been able to have rational licensing laws, to the indeed, I think, benefit of the community as a whole. I think the primary purpose of those laws is achieved as well as ever it was and, secondly, the citizen is removed from any terribly dangerous situation I spoke about earlier—breaking the law with impunity and, therefore, bringing the law into contempt, causing trouble for judges and everybody else.

You will pardon me, a Cheann Comhairle, for speaking about those laws but I merely do so as an example, because it is difficult sometimes to speak about the actual thing you have in hand, without inadvertently saying something you did not intend to say or making a suggestion you had not intended to make. That is why I took these licensing laws as an example. But the lesson is this—as far as I am aware, today, you have as good a situation as you ever had under those licensing laws. We have got away from the demoralising situation, not to say the tempting situation, for the police officer who had to exercise those laws. Temptation and difficulty—that was the problem of the police in enforcing those laws, and uncertainty. We have got away from the problem of the courts, the problems of uncertainty, and the knowledge that public opinion was not really behind the laws. I mention that simply for this reason, that there are certain dangers in dealing with problems of this nature and the road traffic problem is as serious a problem as the drunken problem ever was. There are dangers, so to speak, of letting the heart run away with the head.

We should not enact anything here which cannot be properly enforced. I am asking myself this: we will have penalties and all the rest but, when we have a situation in this country where people, having committed serious crimes and offences, are being let out —for instance, Deputies might ask themselves how long a person convicted of murder will serve if he nominally gets life—are our resources there for implementing wholesale penal measures? These are all very pertinent questions, pertinent questions for the Minister and the problems he will have in this Department, pertinent problems for the Minister for Justice, who will have to deal with prisons, remands and all those types of problems, very serious problems for the courts and, then again, the whole matter an almost impossible problem for the Garda Síochána.

If we are to legislate here for a plan, I should like to urge strongly the point of view that its ultimate enforcement be kept in mind. In my view, it would be better to under-legislate and, perhaps, over-administer, rather than the other way round. There is also a hidden trap for all executives in this type of legislation. I am regarding ourselves merely as the legislators and we should be conscious of it. If we had completely separate functions, it would be our job to be very conscious of it, but all executives will like to have things cut and dried and the matter simple. Unfortunately, that is not always the way with human society and sometimes a cut and dried situation—if it cannot be one hundred per cent enforced—can defeat itself, as Deputies can imagine, without my going into it. I realise now I am perilously near lecturing and I hope the Minister, his advisers, the Garda and such people, will not take me in that spirit. That is not my purpose and I freely acknowledge theirs is the more competent knowledge. I would bow to their opinion in practically all these matters, particularly to the technical opinion of the Garda but, at the same time, it is only right that I should raise these matters. In short, the plea is to keep our legislative efforts within the bounds of what we can actually achieve. To do otherwise has so many disadvantages that I do not think I need enumerate them here.

With those preparatory remarks, I come to Part V which, listening to some Deputies, one would think was the whole of the Bill. It is not the whole of the Bill and the reason I am talking now is to emphasise very strongly that it is not the whole of the Bill. There are two points of view on this section and it is just as well to analyse them. I have one definite suggestion to make to the Minister. We have to make up our minds as to whether, firstly, for the Second Stage anyway—leaving out the technical details of how you will enforce it; that is Committee Stage work—whether or not we agree with the Minister's proposal.

Let us ask ourselves what is the Minister's proposal. As I understand it, the Minister's proposal is a very reasonable and very simple one. It has nothing to do with the statutory crime of being drunk in charge which still remains on the Statute Book. The Minister is proposing to us that we make a new offence. He is proposing that if a person has a certain alcoholic content in his blood, 125 milligrammes per 100 millilitres, he should not drive, and if he does attempt to drive, he is committing an offence. It is as simple as that. Should we legislate for that or not?

Why does the Minister introduce this new crime? Because there is the report of a Commission and because there is a large body of evidence which positively proves that any human being, on the average, apparently a fairly conclusive average, who has an alcohol content in his blood above a certain level is impaired in his functions and will be adversely affected in his driving of a motor car. That is the case; that is the reason. It is as simple as that. After that, we have to make up our minds as to whether we are with the Minister or against him. Let us put out of our minds all questions of being drunk in charge. That crime is still on the Statute Book, and if anyone is drunk and incapable while driving a motor car, that is a separate offence, and I do not think there is any Deputy who would defend a proposition to abolish that offence.

Here we are dealing with something separate and apart, something on which a commission has reported and recommended. I will not repeat the Minister's reasons because we can accept without dispute the fact that everything the Minister says here is true, that anyone with an alcohol content above a certain level is impaired in his functions. That cannot be contradicted. I find myself listening to people speaking on this matter and, not having any particular emotional approach to it, oscillating between the watch-out merchants, on the one hand, and the let-us-have-a-go merchants, on the other. My approach would be: a plague on both your houses. There are the people who want to turn everybody into a pussyfoot. That is not commonsense. There may be others who want to give him every leniency. That does not make sense either. What we have to ask ourselves is: What is the risk to the community?

In approaching this matter, there are some questions I would like the Minister to answer because I cannot answer them for myself. The first one is: Is the taking of drink before driving at this stage so big a part of the problem: having regard to all I have said before as to the difficulty of administration and so on, is it of such a magnitude that we should do this now? That is an important question. There will be a load on the Garda. My own feeling is that by and large inconsiderate driving, taking risks with speed, and inattention on the road are more important. On the other hand, I agree with Deputy Tully that the drunken driver is a desperate menace. But is the law not already sufficient for that?

This I pose as a question and on the answer to that question I would either find myself with Deputy Larkin and Deputy Tully or else I would require to be persuaded that this provision should be in the Bill at all. I have tried to look into some aspects of this matter and the results of my efforts have been inconclusive. I have not enough knowledge to come to a judgment myself as to whether this provision is necessary at the moment. Therefore if, after due consideration, the Minister and his advisers consider that it is, I am prepared to line myself with Deputies Larkin and Tully rather than with the other people.

But if I am, I have some comments to make in more detail on the sections. The Minister proposes a new offence; he gives his reasons for that proposition and if he maintains that position, he will have the support not only of his own Party but others as well. I will accept his decision on that. If he is going to do that, is Part V of the Bill not altogether too complex? Are we not going to be too scrupulous in the whole business? I would prefer Deputy Larkin's approach to this. His attitude is that anyone who has imbibed so much alcohol should not drive, that driving is a privilege, that a driver is responsible to the community and that he should not drive a car if he has so much alcohol in him. If it is not necessary to bring in this it should not be done. After all, it is a certain curtailment of the freedom of the individual. That curtailment is, nevertheless, balanced by the fact that the community will allow him to use a dangerous weapon, if you like, and the community are entitled to specify the conditions where driving a motor car, having regard to the impact of it on individuals, as Deputy Tully said, may be prevented. Therefore, the freedom of the individual does not come into this at all as it would in other cases.

I want to say, if the Minister is concerned with this, that the breathaliser is fair, if that is the only way you test the alcoholic content. Let me preface my remarks on this matter by saying that this Bill is unnecessarily complicated, particularly in regard to the provisions for blood tests and all the other tests. I am sure the Minister has taken advice from his advisers and I am sure he is bringing in these provisions with the best of motives and is being scrupulously fair and scrupulously just to any one individual who may be involved.

That is a laudable aim. The consequences as worked down have definite disadvantages. I should like to cut right to the heart of the thing and say: "Look, if this is serious enough, merely take the breathaliser test and that will be sufficient evidence," that is, if you can work the test down to that. It is simple and it is direct. It may suffer from the defect that in individual cases it will not give you 125 mg. per 100 ml. There may be many variations there. There may be a risk that a person who has 122 mg. per 100 ml. might come out of the breathaliser all right or a person who has 130 might not come out at all. That is fundamentally the reason why the Minister has brought in the other tests.

When dealing with driving schools, I said that you could have confusion with a lot of details. The same can happen in this case. There are a lot of objections to the blood test and to the urine test. In the last analysis, I wonder can they be as reliable? On the face of it, they are good. I want to say this now, as somebody who has had some practical experience, both as a chemist and as a practical lawyer and who can speak about this with some knowledge. You may dismiss the breathaliser test as inaccurate and say it has its defects. It has, but so have all the other tests. Incidentally, if any Deputy is interested, I read an article recently—I hope to have it located before Committee Stage—which, to say the least of it, was rather disturbing. It dealt with these tests in the USA. The thing I do not like about the procedure here, either from the scientific or the legal point of view, is that in this whole chain of tests, although they are designed to be fair to the individuals concerned, you are always taking the chance that something can go wrong.

I believe, to a large extent, that the breathaliser test, with all its risks, is the safest thing for the community, having regard to the fact that you are not engaging in something where the fundamental rights of the individual are involved. The best thing is to have a simple test like the breathaliser which does not involve any inroad on the individual's privacy or on his person, as do the other two tests. I should like to say to the Minister that if he believes that the creation of this offence is necessary and desirable for the purpose for which it is done, we are with him, but I believe that the straightforward breathaliser test is good enough. There may be an outcry about this as there has been in other countries when they were dealing with this matter. This will control the matter as well as anything else.

I understand that in Sweden one form of the breathaliser test is that you blow into a tube and that you can see the result of the test straight away. That test is done in front of the police and the accused person and both of them see the result of it straight away. Of course, it has rather ludicrous consequences. In some countries you can pull a tube off a wall in a pub, blow into it and you can test yourself as you go along. Maybe this is all to the good. That will bring in an element of prevention rather than a deterrent. It is probably as good a test as you want. This test does not interfere with the person concerned; it does not interfere with a person's privacy as the other tests do. I am, therefore, making a strong plea to the Minister to have particular regard to this breathaliser test. It has been adopted in other countries. It is a matter for the Minister to decide the type of breathaliser test he brings in.

Another point about this is that I intensely dislike this blood test on a compulsory basis. There are people who regard a blood test as a major operation. I wonder how many Deputies have had a blood test? It is not a question of a simple nick on the finger; it is a matter of taking a sizeable sample of blood. It is very often taken from the elbow. It is taken by a syringe and is tested in a laboratory afterwards. These procedures are not any more infallible than the breathalisers and the more changed they are, the more dangerous they are. Apart from that, there are certain reasons why the individual should not be subjected to them. It is all right in hospitals. Doctors and people who know about this minimise these procedures as much as they can. If you are going to have a blood sample taken in a police station as a kind of routine under compulsion, far be it from me to cast any reflection on any profession or person, but you are not giving a doctor a chance of doing it in the safest situation. There must be risks of infection.

One can develop this further. It is something to be avoided. The Minister has admitted that because he has provided the alternative, and very properly, but I think that compulsion is not desirable. To argue that there is no compulsion does not make sense because the fact is it would be, in effect, compulsory. I feel that we should forget about that test. It is not necessary here. If there is a risk of the breathaliser going wrong, all right, we are taking the risk. We are fixing the alcohol level at a high level of 125 milligrammes to 100 millilitres of blood and if it gets to 122 or 120 milligrammes, there is no injustice being done. I am assuming, of course, that the levels are properly chosen a little high, and if an odd person who should be caught gets off, it is not going to be a terribly serious thing because the breathaliser did not take him right up to the value. It will not be a terribly vital thing for the community. The important thing is that, on the average, a proper level of alcohol content will be enforced and you do not have this very objectionable interference with what should be, as far as possible, inviolate to the person. Therefore, from two points of view, I would strongly urge the Minister to reconsider.

The other test is less objectionable. One can argue that it is no more than a breath test: at least it does not involve a wound. The blood test does involve wounding the individual at some risk. The urine test at least does not involve that but there is a rather undesirable invasion of privacy which should not be, unless it is absolutely necessary. Not only is there what one might call the ordinary delicacy of the situation involved but an examination of this nature may reveal and make available information about the general health of the person. That goes for the blood test, too. That is information that properly is the very private business of the person and which even his medical adviser is bound by the Hippocratic oath to hold sacred. I do not think we should go in on these grounds.

You cannot make absolute rules. Deputies will notice that I have not made any point about constitutional law. I am not making a point about constitutional laws; I am making a point that we, as lawmakers, should have regard to these things. One may plead that on certain occasions we have to do it. Yes; but on these occasions we have got to do it. For instance, there was a time when it was deemed to be necessary to make smallpox inoculation compulsory. In fact, if smallpox inoculation had not been made compulsory, the menace of that disease would not have been wiped out. It had to be handled in virtually the same way as TB in cattle. It had to be compulsory but there was no way out. Secondly, one was not compulsorily inoculated. If one refused to be inoculated, he was fined or something like that. In times of epidemic, it may be necessary to take special health precautions. There was a case of foot and mouth disease in England where it was necessary to isolate an individual, to take away his liberty for a time because of the risk to the community. I do not want my argument to be carried too far but the essential part of it is that I want to draw the Minister's attention to the objections that are there which I and others have enumerated against these tests and on top of that, I am submitting to the Minister that these tests are unnecessary.

I now submit the tests are unnecessary from another point of view. There is a large amount of procedure laid down which the Minister and the harassed administrators and executives will have to administer, to say nothing of the courts, the police and everybody else. This will put a whole train of procedures into effect. If the garda were to enforce this law 100 per cent, until people get used to it, it would nearly be necessary to have a police officer at every centre where drink is being consumed and there are cars parked. I am talking from the point of view of educating. Assume for the moment that the officer is only there to try to make people used to the situation. How many garda are needed if we are going to do that? Suppose the garda take all these samples, start with the breathaliser, and park themselves outside a certain establishment. I shall not mention a location, but Deputies can imagine for themselves places in this town and around the country where you will see a large number of cars outside a large number of establishments. If you had been in those establishments earlier, you would have seen a large number of people, by and large very well behaved, but a certain percentage of whom will be over this level.

Buying large ones.

Buying large whiskeys.

That is not fair. We must be careful. We should not make criminals out of people who are not criminals. That is another bad principle of law. What is the logical sequence of this? It is that the Garda will breathalise everybody—it seems to me it will be very difficult not to breathalise everybody—and the traffic congestion thereby occasioned will pose its own problems. My sympathy in all this is with the Garda. The next thing is there will be a large number of people brought somewhere, to see a doctor or elsewhere. After that, there will be the administrative problem that there will be a large number of samples of two sorts in the police station, or wherever they are being examined. This is not meant to be a joke. If we are enforcing this law——

(Cavan): You may add this one to the other two.

You will then have all these samples consigned to be analysed. If those analyses are to be done as analyses should be done to achieve the purpose for which this is in the Bill, it will take some time and skill. I talk with authority, both as a chemist and a lawyer on this, and I wish to be taken as such. If these tests are to be properly done, first of all, the samples will have to be labelled and arranged. They will have to go to the proper place to be tested. They will have to be tested and the reports will have to come back. That will involve a terrific amount of administration. This is only on a superficial reading of the Bill, much of which will be Committee Stage discussion. Will they all come to a central laboratory in Dublin? There you will have the risk of communication. How will they be brought up? Are you sure they will be labelled correctly? Are you sure the results of the tests will be applied to the same samples? I am assuming that this law will be impartially enforced.

Again, I say that the more I think of it from this point of view, the more my sympathies go out to the Garda, if we legislate in this way. They are the people who will have to enforce the law. A serious thing is that here we can mislead ourselves in our desire to be scrupulously fair. I do not want to be taken as criticising the Minister's proposal from an unreasonable or unsympathetic point of view. We owe a lot to the Minister for bringing in this legislation. I hope the Minister will bear with me in this analysis of the situation, as it is very pertinent.

The whole procedure seems to involve a large mass of administration. Will the tests be done at local centres or will they come to Dublin? There is a whole mass of organisation involved in this, that is, assuming that it will be done impartially. This law will be a reality for the whole community and will not just act as a special deterrent, that we will hit on a few unfortunate individuals and hold them up as an example, hoping that that will keep the rest in order.

There is a point for equality of justice. It is terribly important. Let me go back to my analogy of the old drinking laws. That is where they became so unpopular. Some unfortunates were caught one night and pilloried and made an example of for the rest. Those who were caught knew that 100 per cent were getting away every night of the week, and that bred resentment and disregard for the law. Let us beware that we will not do this here. If we are to have this crime dealt with, it must be on a fair basis; it must not be on the basis of a spot check and pillorying one unfortunate person. That was all right in the days when there was no other way of dealing with sheep stealing. We cannot approach it in this way. We must approach it on the assumption that the Garda will have a specific level of alcohol content to correspond with this crime.

The more I see the amount of administration that will be involved in this and the problem for the Garda, the more I urge on the Minister to come back to the simple test, and that quite apart from what I consider to be very weighty reasons why these intimate personal tests should be abandoned. Remember, they are not necessary. My case is not that they should not be there, but that they are not necessary. All this is not necessary. I for one am prepared to stand up and say that if the Minister thinks this crime is sufficiently important to establish these tests, I heartily will support it. But I will go further and say: "Make it a simple average for the community and go on the breathaliser test. It may have wider tolerances, but in these wider tolerances there is much less difficulty than in efforts to be scrupulous in any one individual case."

Having regard to the 125 milligrammes, there is all the rest of this procedure just to verify a nice clean figure of 125. What we have to do then to enforce the law is to remember that our real intention is not to enshrine a figure of 125 milligrammes or 100 millilitres; our purpose is to see that the alcohol content in a driver is at the safe level, and we do that by fixing the mean value at 125, and then try to determine. We should not be too closely concerned with variations of a milligramme, or anything like that, that is, from the scientific point of view of what is involved in these tests. It is just to make sure you are 125, no more or less; in other words, to make your tolerance closer than you would make it with the breathaliser test.

I would say to the Minister that if he is going to do this, let him take courage and do it the simple way: stand by the breathaliser. It is the least invasion of the individual's rights. If a person objects, you have a very fair answer: "If you drink, my boy, do not drive. We are not making you drink; there is an overall requirement for the community here; we have to have some standard for enforcing prudence here; it is up to you to see that this level is maintained and it is in the interest of the community we are doing this." It is not a basic inroad on the rights of the individual, as I tried to explain earlier tonight.

On this section we can debate such things as to whether 125 is the right level, and so on, but I shall not delay on that now. I should like to refer to a particular aspect of enforcement. I have traced the consequences to the Garda enforcing this section as it should be enforced if we are serious about it. I think the thing almost becomes an impossibility. We are really running a risk in making this kind of legislation, which I condemned earlier. On the other hand, if it is merely the breathaliser test, the situation can be much more satisfactory.

First of all, the Garda can dispose of the matter at the moment. By means of breathaliser tubes, the Garda can use their judgment. They test people and can dispose of it straight away. They do not have to send off samples, and all the rest. If he finds that the breathaliser gave him 124, and the fellow looks all right, the Garda can use his judgment. If he finds it is 125, then he will be forced by the law to bring him to court and he can give his evidence then. If it is over 125, the Garda can deal with the question on the spot and there will usually be other symptoms to help. The matter can be disposed of there and then and there is not a whole load back.

It is unfair to get it into one's head that the Garda will be unfair or will be out to hang people, and so on. That is not our general experience. I think the public will allow that, by and large, the Garda have been very considerate, perhaps over-considerate on this matter of drink in other cases because of the difficulty of enforcing the law as it stands. This may make their job easy. However, it should be made simple in that way. Therefore, without labouring the point any further, I shall come back to it again.

I strongly suggest to the Minister that he should reconsider this whole mechanism both from the point of view of the unnecessary tampering with the person and privacy of the individual: the important word there is "unnecessary". Secondly, I would ask him to do so from the point of view of the administrative load and the difficulties of enforcing it. I would ask the Minister to look very carefully at that. In saying that, lest I should appear to be making an adverse comment on the commission's report, I, too, should like to pay a tribute to that commission and to all other commissions that do valuable work for us. These jobs are difficult. Commissions have the job of reconciling experts, of being both experts and not experts at the same time. Experts can be dangerous when they go too closely into a matter. The more closely you study a thing, the more involved and more complex it is. That is why we should ask ourselves the following question: What are we getting and how do you do it and in the simplest and most clearcut way, even though that may involve approximations? However, approximations are generally necessary when dealing with large numbers and that is our case with the community. It is vitally important to underlegislate and administer efficiently rather than the other way around. As in all these things, I think we should be willing to listen to the other side of the story.

I shall finish by developing the point made by Deputy Larkin. On the question of motor insurance, here again it is a matter for the Committee Stage. This Bill is really largely a Committee Stage Bill. There have been, as the Minister probably knows, some serious insurance problems in England recently in connection with road traffic. Is there any need for us to look at that situation? Is this the right Minister and the right Bill to do it? I do not know. But, in case the matter has not been adverted to, I should like just to mention that to the Minister.

The point which is involved is that we maintain a proper level of insurance cover to achieve the intention, that is, that for anybody who is injured through the negligence or fault of another person, or indeed through a motor accident, there will be some compensation—in other words, that the concept of insurance for motor vehicles is really insurance and is not meant primarily to be a concept of paying for accident claims. What it is really meant to be is to ensure that provision is made for individuals who suffer as a result of a mechanicallypropelled vehicle on the road. I think that is the basic reason for insurance here. With that in view, and the recent experience in England, I would mention it.

I have nothing to say about Part VII. I have dealt with the regulation of traffic. I personally should like to reinforce the pleas made by Deputies in regard to wandering animals. I very nearly had a nasty accident not so long ago due to a wandering horse. I have recently, on a number of occasions in the immediate vicinity of Dublin, come across cattle on the road. It had not struck me until he mentioned it but I agree with the Deputy that said that this has become more common than it was. I am inclined to agree with that.

(Cavan): It must be due to the heifer scheme.

Or to motorists knocking down fences.

That is a very serious problem and a very likely cause of accident just as the parked vehicle, whether with or without lights, at the wrong place can be a serious matter, too.

Section 41 has been mentioned. I think it is mainly a matter for Committee Stage. To some extent, I would share the questions asked if not the objections under that section. There is one question, but this, again, is a Committee Stage question. Why is it necessary for us to bring in this section? I thought it was adequately covered in the law. I should like the Minister to deal with the matter when he is replying. Maybe I missed it when he was saying it, in which case I apologise. Driving without reasonable consideration and careless driving— why should it be necessary to amend that? I thought the law was adequate. That will do on Committee Stage and we can talk about it then. However, I was rather surprised that it was necessary to amend it.

In short, I think that this Bill is a very proper one to come before us. I should like to express appreciation particularly of the Minister's opening speech, which, incidentally, I think is the finest type of White Paper that one can get. I think it is much better than the explanatory memorandum. I, for one, am very grateful to the Minister for the trouble he went to. I think Deputy James Tully was a little ungracious there in that connection. I think it was very helpful indeed to get the detail the Minister gave.

That is what I thought, too.

The Deputy was not here last night.

I found it extremely helpful.

It is hard to absorb——

I should like to comment on—not to controvert—a lot of the statements which were made here but I shall not delay now because it does not help the House to do so but I think it was a very fine thing to have got that.

By and large, the Bill is a good one. If it has come under fire because of one Part it is because there was scrupulous effort and attention to try to be fair and just in the interests of all of the people. Too often in the past Deputies and others have complained that Bills have been insensitive, rough-riding over the rights of all and sundry. My main criticism of some of the provisions in Part V has been about their complexity, but I realise this is due to the desire to achieve fairness scrupulously. I suggest that the Garda will make every endeavour to do a simple and straightforward job here. Further remarks I reserve until Committee Stage.

Seldom in my experience of the business of the House have we had such a lengthy and forthright discussion on a measure. I was deeply impressed by the obvious sincerity and deep conviction with which many Deputies spoke from all sides of the House. The debate has been unique in that the Party line has not been adhered to and this was amply demonstrated by the speeches of such Deputies as Deputy N. Lemass and Deputy de Valera. This, perhaps, is a good thing. These two Deputies, with Deputy Dillon, were very critical of many of the features of the Bill, particularly in respect of the alleged violation of the rights of individuals and of fear of encroachments on the personal affairs of individuals.

I choose to think that the Minister, in bringing forward this measure, had as his primary aim a step towards the elimination of the slaughter on the roads, a practical step to render our roads safer. It is true there are many severe provisions in the Bill, and many severe penalties, especially pertaining to driving while drunk. I submit that such measures are long overdue, but one must have regard to the fact that all the speeches made, all the written admonitions and warnings to people to keep death off our roads—the appeals to people to be more responsible, and more restrained and to have regard for the rights of other road users—have very largely been a wasteful exercise. All the spouting and the shouting about drunken driving, at banquets, lectures and seminars, all the toasts drunk with enthusiasm, have been, by and large, a failure.

The incidence of death, destruction and the inflicting of human misery through road accidents seems to be increasing rather than diminishing. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the Government and the Minister should decide to take positive steps and lay down penalties of sufficient stringency to shock all road users, including pedestrians, into a sense of responsibility at this juncture rather than allow the slaughter and carnage to continue unabated? If the severe penalties laid down in this measure have the result of shocking all those who abuse their privilages as road users to a greater realisation of civic spirit, then it is to be commended. If it saves one life, it is a good measure and I believe the public at large have been crying out for a long time for more effective measures, particularly against drunken drivers, by way of stricter penalties.

Indeed, private conversations with many of our friends and their expressions of abhorrence at death on the roads and the manner in which these awful accidents take place convey to us that they feel nothing will be bad enough to do to the drunken driver. Therefore, I am very slow to row in behind Deputies Lemass and de Valera in efforts to compromise the Bill in any way. We on this side of the House have been as great advocates of preserving the rights of individuals and of safeguarding the democratic way of life as any Deputy but when it comes to the awful picture of death and destruction going on our roads, we feel obliged in conscience to support any Minister who will take steps to ease and to mitigate this terrible situation.

Those of us who have been road users for some time realise that there is no longer any joy in driving. Every time we get into a car we take our lives in our hands. Vehicles—I mean not merely cars but bicycles, trucks, tractors and so on—are essentially vehicles of destruction and it is only right that legislation should be enacted to ensure that the people who operate them should be made to realise that they must do so with responsibility and restraint. My only concern in regard to the provisions in the Bill, especially those relating to drunken driving and the application of the various tests which the Minister has decided to impose—breath, blood and urine—is that they may be maladministered. We are giving very wide powers to the Garda Síochána in particular in the administration of this legislation. One hopes it will be administered in a fair and impartial manner and that the fears, mainly expressed from Fianna Fáil benches, of unfairness in their application will never be realised.

The possibility that a sergeant, as suggested by Deputy Lemass, or a garda would harass one individual whom he did not like and impose on him the full rigours of the law is hard to contemplate, but it is quite possible.

Deputy de Valera gave us a rather graphic picture of what can happen if through spleen, rancour, political bias or any other human failing, the administrators of this Bill select for special treatment individuals, publicans, hotels or hostelries where drink is consumed. The implication is serious. The Minister would need to be satisfied that we do not have cases coming back to this House of discrimination of the kind outlined here by various Deputies or the possibility of there being discrimination of this kind.

Deputy Lemass was very forthright in his denunciation of this measure in its entirety. He stated that it was illconceived, ill-considered and produced on an emotional rather than a practical basis. He implied that the Minister and the Government were influenced by a pressure group or pressure groups. He mentioned the Total Abstinence Society in particular as having some influence on the Minister in introducing this measure. He went so far as to say that this was a matter of conscience with him and he told the House how reluctant he would be to vote with the Government on this measure, so keenly did he feel about very many salient points in the proposals.

I would have been inclined to congratulate Deputy Lemass if I felt that it was a matter of conscience which activated him to say these things but having listened to him very closely I am inclined to think that Deputy Lemass was representing the views, not of the Total Abstinence Society— he accused the Minister of doing that —but of some other vested interests— the beer barons and all those engaged in the liquor trade. I would be very concerned if any Deputy would represent a vested interest of this kind in a matter in which the people are so vitally concerned and where it is a question of safeguarding human life. I respect men of conscience but one cannot respect one who would come in here and use conscience for an ulterior motive.

There are very many aspects of the measure with which I should like to deal. Great emphasis has been laid on the various devices to deal with the drunken driver. Is it true that alcohol is responsible for a very small percentage of the accidents on the roads? The figure mentioned by the Minister is as low as three per cent. I believe the figure is much higher. There is probably good reason why the figure is put so low. I understand there was reluctance on the part of many people even in high authority to give proper figures and proper evidence as to drink as a cause of accidents. If the figure is as low as three per cent or even five per cent, I would agree with Deputy de Valera that there would be no justification for the very stringent measures contained in the Bill, such as the application of breathalisers, blood tests, urine tests and the fact that people can be arrested without warrant, brought to a police station and the tests carried out there. I believe that the true percentage is much higher and I would ask the Minister to comment on the low figure given and say if he feels with us that, in fact, the figure is much higher.

There are very many factors other than drink which contribute to or cause accidents. For instance, take the condition of our roads. The white line marking has contributed to road safety and county councils are to be congratulated on extending the use of the white line marking in recent times but there is one matter to which I should like to refer in that connection. When road widening or re-alignment has taken place, there is a tendency to leave the old white line there even where there has been a diversion. There is a particular instance of that on the Naas Road. On leaving the dual carriageway and coming to a narrow bottleneck, one sees the old white line there and if a driver were to follow that white line, he would meet with disaster. There should be an obligation on local authorities or the responsible authority to obliterate white lines where they are no longer required so that people will not be led to disaster by following them.

When men are working on a road it is usual to erect signs saying: "Men at work", or "Go slow", and so on. A driver slows down on seeing such signs, sometimes only to find that that was unnecessary, that the work had been completed some months, weeks or days previously. Why should such signs be displayed after the necessity for them has disappeared?

The question of animals on the road has been adverted to by many Deputies. This is a most serious problem. Trucking in animals, particularly horses, would seem to be a lucrative trade for the itinerant element in our society. The number of animals on the roads would seem to be growing. It is not uncommon to see large numbers of horses, asses and ponies on main roads. Neither is it uncommon to see itinerants with quite impressive limousines and living-wagons. The Minister should take positive steps to ensure that these animals are not allowed to stray on the roads. Too many accidents are caused by these straying animals. The Garda are doing all they can to cope with the situation but not enough of these animals are finding their way to the local pound and there are not sufficient penalties imposed for offences.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 9th March, 1967.
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