I move amendment No. 80:
In page 27, lines 39 and 40, to delete "and shall appoint one of the members to be Chairman of the Authority." and substitute the following:
"and shall include in his appointments——
(i) one representative of the professional and technical staff of roads authorities, elected in an election to be conducted by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions;
(ii) one representative of the road workers of roads authorities, elected in an election to be conducted by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions;
(iii) a representative of road safety offices to be elected by the Roads Safety Association;
(iv) two representatives of the General Council of County Councils;
(v) two representatives of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland;
(vi) two representatives of the National Road Users Association;
(vii) a representative of CIE; and
(viii) a representative of An Taisce.".
These amendments deal with the composition of the National Roads Authority. At present the Minister has discretion to appoint whomever he or she likes as a member of the National Roads Authority. As we are dealing with a number of amendments I will refer now to the Minister's own amendment, as I believe it does not improve the situation substantially. Amendment No. 84 states:
(d) Each member of the Authority shall be a person who in the opinion of the Minister has wide experience and competence in relation to roads,...
That statement could apply to any driver of a motor vehicle or even somebody on a bicycle. It continues:
... transport, industrial, commercial, financial or environmental matters, local government, the organisation of workers or administration...
It is not clear from this amendment if each member of the Authority would have to have experience in all of these spheres. If they were to have such experience it is not membership of the National Roads Authority they should qualify for but we might have somebody who is qualified to run Aer Lingus, or even the country, or even deal with some of the emergencies we have at present. If, as I suspect, the intention is to make general provision, like in the Vocational Education Act, 1930, where in theory members of vocational education committees are supposed to have "knowledge of and experience in educational matters" or the manner in which people qualify for nomination to the various panels for election to Seanad Éireann where they are required to have "knowledge of or inexperience in" different areas, the practice can be quite different. It stretches credibility on some occasions to see the level of knowledge of or experience in the field which qualifies someone for nomination to the Seanad or indeed in some cases for appointment as a member of a vocational education committee and bodies of that kind. A Minister who is determined to make a political appointment — and even Ministers of this Government, I suggest, have been tempted to make appointments of that kind from time to time — can very easily find ways around it.
It is necessary to define the categories of persons and organisations who should be represented on the National Roads Authority. The amendments proposed by myself, Deputy Dukes, Deputy Keogh and Deputy Flanagan are similar in that regard. In my amendment I seek to ensure that the Minister shall include in his appointments representatives of the professional and technical staffs of roads authorities and of road workers — I deliberately choose that formulation — and that they be elected in procedures established by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. It is important that we ensure that people who are directly involved, for example, a local authority roads engineer or road worker, because of their knowledge and experience of roads, be appointed. It is much better that we get somebody like that than a professional trade union leader as he or she may not necessarily have the degree of expertise — even though they represent workers in this field — knowledge or, indeed, time to commit themselves to membership of the National Roads Authority. Similarly I think it is important that a representative of the Roads Safety Association would be included. I have spoken before on the necessity to heighten awareness of road safety.
The number of deaths on our roads varies from between 400 to 600 per annum, depending on the year one takes. This is of the order of magnitude of the crisis in Northern Ireland, yet it is very often passed over. I also make provision for representatives of the bodies representing local authorities, the National Road Users Association, the public transport authority and An Taisce, in view of the obvious environmental consideration that has to be taken into account.
I am not offering this as the absolute be all and end all of membership of the National Roads Authority but it is desirable that a formula of this kind is built into the legislation to provide a basis for appointments to the National Roads Authority rather than leaving it entirely at the discretion of the Minister, albeit qualified by the amendment which he himself proposes. He has before him a number of options and I appeal to him to accept one of the options as they are all in the same general vein.