Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 February 2017
36. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his views on the procedures regarding the administering of driving licences, application of penalty points and the efficient sharing of necessary licence data between all agencies concerned with road safety; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5890/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraI understand the director of the Road Safety Authority, RSA, was in the House this morning. Since 2013, the authority has been responsible for administering driving licences through the National Driver Licence Service, NDLS. According to figures that were released in 2015, approximately 96% of drivers who are disqualified in court do not surrender their licences. The Irish Times recently reported on RSA figures that show "there are almost 8,000 drivers on Ireland’s roads who have multiple concurrent disqualifications on their licences but continue to flout the law by driving". I have asked the Minister about this matter previously. As he knows, it was the subject of an amendment I tried to move during the recent debate on the Road Traffic Bill 2016. The information technology systems used by the courts, the RSA and the Garda need to be closely aligned if we are to eliminate the huge lacuna in information on driving licences that seems to exist at present. This is a particular problem for the Garda.
I thank Deputy Broughan for his important question, which relates to an issue that needs to be addressed. I think the failure to co-ordinate information sufficiently is having an adverse effect on road safety. The licensing master plan that is to be introduced, as the Deputy knows, will assist in the fight against road deaths. The RSA is the licensing authority with responsibility for the NDLS, which commenced operation on 29 October 2013. Some 556,439 driver licence applications were received in 2016. The NDLS is an umbrella entity that encompasses three independent contractors - a front office, a back office and a card producer - which deliver distinct services resulting in the production of the plastic card licence. The presence of three separate entities adds to the complexity of the service. Handover issues among the three entities can lead to challenges in managing the NDLS contracts. These challenges were managed in 2016 and as a result, there is now a more streamlined approach between the three entities.
The penalty points system for driving offences was introduced in Ireland on 31 October 2002. Penalty point offences are recorded on a driving licence record if an individual is convicted of a driving offence that attracts penalty points. In the case of a fixed-charge notice for an alleged offence that attracts penalty points, the driver can opt to pay the fine rather than having the matter referred to the courts. Penalty points are endorsed on a driver record by the Department's national vehicle driver file, which is the record of fact for driving licences, on the direction of An Garda Síochána or the courts. When notification is received from An Post or the Courts Service, the appropriate points are recorded on the driving licence record.
Since the introduction of the penalty points system, there have been two primary reasons penalty points cannot be applied. These are that the penalty point offence record received from the Garda or Courts Service did not include a valid driver number or the offenders were the holders of foreign driving licences.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
A 2014 Garda Inspectorate report recommended that a system be introduced to ensure all penalty points are endorsed on driving licences. The criminal justice working group recommended that integration of the vehicle and driver database components of the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, system to assist with an optimum allocation of penalty points. It was proposed to create a system to link driving licence holders with one or more vehicles through an NVDF master licence record, MLR. The MLR programme team is investigating the options for populating the MLR electronically at various stages of the vehicle life cycle, including vehicle registration, motor tax renewal, insurance renewal and change of ownership.
This continues to be a massive problem. Road safety organisations, like the outstanding PARC, continually bring it to my attention that they believe the Garda PULSE system is outdated. There could be several recorded dates of birth for a person and different addresses. Unlike the Police Service of Northern Ireland, we do not have roadside hand-held devices.
I also asked the Minister about the process whereby the Road Safety Authority, RSA, and An Garda Síochána work together to establish the validity of a driving licence number and the number of inquiries received by the RSA. I notice the information sent by the Minister indicates there were just 1,268 Garda inquiries to the RSA in 2014, 1,425 in 2015 and 1,712 in 2016 and January 2017. As the Minister knows, these seem to be very low numbers considering the number of speeding cases before the courts around the country between January 2015 and October 2016, which yielded 14,572 convictions but just 6,165 had their licences recorded. There is a lacuna. I note this morning the Minister indicated he would introduce three or four new pieces of legislation. Why does he not address this issue once and for all? We could have done it in the road traffic Bill but we did not. I urge the Minister to take action. We must have a very clear stream of information.
We intend to address the issue in legislation this year. Although I probably will not be around for it, I have an ambition to introduce a master licence record of a very sophisticated nature. Maybe it will not be this year. Information on that will be available and checkable on one record or computer system. That will include vehicles, drivers, licences, insurance, tax, national car tax and all those elements in order that they can be compared immediately. The Deputy knows one of the current problems is even the vehicle and driver element do not talk to each other, which makes detection very difficult for gardaí. I see no reason for this somewhat antediluvian system, which obstructs detection and prevention of accidents and fatalities, not being amalgamated into one driver file. It is my ambition to do that and the Deputy would share that view.
I welcome the Minister's comments and he brought forward the road traffic Bill. We are also discussing the section 44 issue in the Courts (No. 2) Bill at the moment. There is a major deficit of information. I asked the Road Safety Authority about the information for when drivers informed it of a change of address or other change of details to the ten-year driving licence. I am still waiting for that. In the UK the legislation has a fine of up to £1,000 for failing to inform the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency of a change of address. There are major actions that could be taken via legislation or statutory instrument to progress this. I have asked many times if the RSA has successfully undertaken a matching exercise to match a conviction with a specific driving licence when a licence number was not recorded in court on conviction. I have been waiting for that information for the past number of months. It is a critical area if we are to make an impact on the horrendous figures for last year, when 188 people died on the roads.
In accordance with Standing Orders, I will allow a short supplementary question from Deputy Wallace.
I commend the Minister on refusing to make promises given that the Government is probably not going to last very long anyway, especially given that the loss of a second Garda Commissioner is imminent. Fair play to the Minister and credit where it is due.
I do not know if the Minister will respond to that.
Go on, do.
I do not know how to respond to that. I am not sure it is a road traffic question. Nevertheless, any compliment from the Deputy is most welcome.
Your last response invited the question.
Thank you. There are many holes that need to be plugged. It is quite staggering how the records on insurance - who is insured or not - are a shambles. As I am sure the Deputy is aware, under a system abandoned in 2014, people were coming up in the automatic number plate recognition system as being uninsured when they had just changed insurance companies. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we have such a huge estimate for the number of uninsured people in the country. Perhaps it is correct but the figure was 150,000 at one stage. That may be a result of the fact that the collection of information is so flawed. The Deputy mentioned people changing addresses and that we do not know where people live in certain circumstances. That could be addressed and we will address it with a great deal of urgency not just in legislation but also by encouraging the various State agencies in this regard.
