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.