An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel

Any right-thinking person would have to stand with Ukraine at this hour of great urgency and I express my solidarity.
I want to hark back to something a couple of colleagues mentioned earlier, which is the issue of road safety. I am very definite in the opinion that what we need most in this country in relation to road safety, as I said during the debate last week, is a dramatic change in driver behaviour. The attitude that pervades on Irish roads seems to be "it does not apply to me".
From speed limits to using mobile phones to allowing children to drive unaccompanied as learner drivers, all these things are seen as, "It does not apply to me. What harm would it do the odd time." That really comes back to the whole business of enforcement. As I mentioned last week, there should be average speed cameras, an increase in the strict application of penalty points, and an increase in the minimum number points from three to six. As I said on that occasion, over a third of those who get penalty points reoffend. That tells its own tale, which is that the penalty points regime is not strict enough. It should be the case that if you get six points, and then another six points, at that stage you are out. If these things were enforced, if we financed An Garda Síochána to increase the number of unmarked cars and average speed cameras, and if the courts imposed penalty points at a greater and stricter level, we would succeed in moderating the generally atrocious driver behaviour we all see. Everybody in this House and abroad sees that road behaviour in Ireland is at a very poor level.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24