No need for special penalty points – just enforce the present law

I saw a cartoon recently somewhere which depicted Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly filling a bucket with water. The bucket was full of holes, so the water poured out as fast as he put it in. An advisor looking on suggested it might be advisable to fix the holes first. In other words, deal with the root cause of the problem.

Good advice that could equally apply to Minister of state at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers. He wants to fiddle with the Road Traffic Act again. Not only would he have us driving around our towns at 30kph, but motorists who commit traffic offences such as speeding or not wearing a seatbelt could face higher penalty points on bank holiday weekends.

According to the Irish Examiner, under his proposed new legislation, powers would be granted to vary the number of penalty points during specific times when road safety risks are higher. It is not yet clear what the points would increase by, and the legislation allows just for the variation at this stage.

Data shows there has been a consecutive increase in the number of people caught speeding over the most recent bank holiday weekends, as well as increases in drink and drug-driving arrests.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has defended garda enforcement on the roads, insisting their presence is “strong”. “We will need to do everything we can to make it even stronger,” said Ms McEntee. “I think what we are seeing is changing trends and changing behaviours, and we need to be able to respond to that.”

I have no idea what she means by that, but I think it’s fair to say that enforcement is sadly lacking and that lies at the heart of the matter. Introducing laws that legislate for specific times of the year, like bank holidays, is like trying fill the leaky bucket. It won’t fix the root cause of traffic accidents which is poor driving standards.

The basic issue with the Road Traffic Act is not the quality of the law but the lack of enforcement of it. Minister Helen McEntee and Commissioner Drew Harris can prattle on ad infinitum about having adequate resources to police our small State, but everyone knows that’s a load of nonsense. There is no point in spinning that line anymore because nobody believes it.

It’s very simple. If they have the resources they need, then questions must be asked of garda management about the deployment. Where are they? Gardai are not a visible presence on our streets in 2023 so please stop trying to convince us otherwise because it simply isn’t credible. Let me give you an idea of what a police presence and real enforcement looks like.

I drove down to Paphos Airport in Cyprus last week to collect some family members. It’s a two-hour drive from my place in Paralimni. They were due to arrive at 6pm so I struck off around three in the afternoon. I took my time and because they were slightly delayed, we were back on the road again by 7pm and by then it was dark.

My brother-in-law commented on the number of police cars and speed detection vans he saw on the way home. I’m used to seeing them on a daily basis, so it didn’t surprise me. I didn’t count them because I wasn’t taking too much notice but from then on, I counted three speed vans in operation and five motorists who had been pulled in by the police at different points along the route.

That was just on our side of the motorway and to put that into perspective, the island of Cyprus, is roughly the size of Munster with a population of somewhere in the region of 1.2 million.

The town of Paralimni has an official population of just short of 15,000 people according to the 2022 figures from the Municipality so it would be similar in size to towns like Cobh, in Co. Cork. There is one major difference though; you will not travel any distance here, day or night, without seeing a police car or a speed detection van.

They have a substantial presence and while they may have their critics in terms of efficiency, there is no arguing about their visibility. There are regular speed van checks in the area and the police are constantly out and about with their speed guns. They’re everywhere and that’s what a real police presence looks like.

A couple of days before my brother-in-law came here, he attended an event in the National Concert Hall in Dublin. The following day he had some time to kill so he went for a walk in the city centre. He was strolling around for a couple of hours and didn’t see one member of An Garda Siochana on the streets.

This is something regularly commented on by people living and working in the area. Shop keepers have related horrific stories of their daily interaction with shoplifters, drunks, thieves and troublemakers. Many natives and visitors have also complained of feeling unsafe in our capital city. So, it’s time to stop this ridiculous game of bluff by Harris, McEntee, Chambers and others.

Stop trying to placate us with sound bites and knee jerk responses to road fatalities. Additional pieces of legislation that make no sense and won’t be enforced aren’t fooling anyone.

If you really want to make a difference, take a leaf out of the Cypriots’s book and put boots on the ground. Try calling a spade a spade for a change instead of trying to persuade us it’s a pitchfork. You would earn far more respect from the general public if you told it as it is and maybe once you accept there is a problem, you might even start to fix it.