Madam, - Comments of mine quoted in your edition of (August 4th) give a misleading impression because of the context in which they are reported and headlined. I undoubtedly contributed to this confusion.
I was speaking, in the particular context of the statistics released last Thursday on deaths and serious injuries to motorcyclists, at the launch by the National Safety Council of an advertisement which deals directly with this issue. I was asked a number of questions, some of which were general questions on road safety (and the answers to these repeated what I have said previously and what I wrote in an article for Public Affairs magazine).
Some questions were specific to compulsory training for motorcyclists. I had listed the organisations and people in favour of compulsory training - including the high-level group on road safety chaired by the Department of Transport, the insurance industry, the Garda Síochána, the National Safety Council, the Irish Rider Training Association, the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG), medical consultants, etc. Also, as far as I was aware, the Minister for Transport has an internal report from the Department (initiated by his predecessor Mr Brennan) recommending compulsory training.
It was in the particular context of the question, "Why do we not have compulsory training for motorcyclists" that I responded as reported. I was quite wrong to leave the impression that it was the individual will of the Minister for Transport that was lacking in the past implementation of the Government's Road Safety Strategy.
The general point, which is important, is this: It is the collective will of the Government that is required to deliver road safety (and other cross-department) investment programmes efficiently and effectively. In Ireland, unlike certain other countries, we do not have the management structure, knowledge and skills or the budgetary structure to direct and support this collective "will". This failure, in budgetary terms, goes back directly to the Department of Finance - the Department with the vocation to say "No".
The Department of Finance directs and controls a budgetary process that is inadequate to support or respond to the complexities of modern Government and the competing demands for spending scarce public cash. This partly explains why Government is generally good at discussing, researching and consulting, but poor at "doing". Within this dysfunctional structure it is noticeable that some individual projects may succeed only under the direction of a Minister because his or her unique authority forces timely decisions through this structure. This statement is particularly true of the Office of the Taoiseach.
Because the Government's road safety policy has not, in the past, achieved this type of support 140 people are killed and about 1,000 other road users are seriously injured every year. This should not be so. That is a fact.
I have made these observations before, gleaned from the learning experience of the past five frustrating years of working within this area. Perhaps the future will be different?
As for last week's event, the date for the launch of the motorcycle advertisement was, for logistical reasons, fixed only two weeks ago and the Minister was (quite understandably at this time) booked on holidays. He has attended many of the NSC activities since his appointment and actively supports the work of the NSC. The imprecision in my frustrated language was mine and I apologise for the offence that I carelessly caused to the Minister as it was always clear he could not attend last Thursday's event. - Yours, etc,
EDDIE SHAW, Chairman, National Safety Council, Northbrook Road, Dublin 6.