There's little meat on the bones of last week's Government announcements on random breath testing, says Patrick Logue.
If grand announcements saved lives we would have some of the safest roads anywhere in the world.
They were all at it last week: the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, Ministers for Transport and Justice and the Garda Commissioner all had road safety on their minds.
They called press conferences, spoke in the Dáil, announced, and commented like the issue was going out of fashion.
Oh, and the Westlink toll booths are going to be removed.
But last week's flurry of headlines was followed by the usual qualification, elaboration, clarification and, ultimately, confusion.
First Bertie took us all by surprise when he said in the Dáil on Wednesday that random breath testing wasn't unconstitutional after all. If Ian Paisley had walked into the chamber and said he was, on reflection, happy for the Republic to have a say in the running of the North and Martin McGuinness should be minister for justice, we wouldn't have been more shocked.
Announcing the new move, Bertie told the Dáil: "The Attorney General has given advice that it is legal and constitutional to introduce random breath testing. It has to be done in a particular way and that will be done."
We were all a little confused. Along with many others, Jim O'Keeffe of Fine Gael noted following the announcement that, "all of a sudden random breath testing has become magically permissible, but no-one in the Government can explain why. The public has a right to an explanation."
The next day, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport that the AG had advised him existing powers could be used to set up random checkpoints at which motorists might be asked on "reasonable suspicion" to provide a breath sample.
In the past gardaí have needed to show they "formed an opinion" that a driver had consumed excess alcohol before asking for a sample.
So, would random breath testing really happen and will it be really random?
Cue Mr McDowell in Templemore. "No, that's not the case," the Minister answered.
"Obviously you can't create chaos in that way. But if you interpret the law at the moment that they are entitled to stand, say for instance, outside a pub car-park at 11:30pm, engage motorists at a checkpoint and if they form the view that they have consumed alcohol and ask them to blow in a bag ... if that's regarded as random breath testing, I think everybody would agree that that's reasonable."
So, er, that's a yes?
People driving home from "discos at three in the morning," he elaborated, will now face "a serious likelihood that they are going to be stopped in the vicinity of the place they are leaving and subjected to the procedures that the law now provides."
OK, fair enough, that's fairly clear, we finally have random breath testing. Those idiots who drive to the pub and claim to be so fundamentally unique that they can drive safely after two, three, four or more pints will be finally subject to the full rigour of the justice system.
Well, maybe. Martin Cullen was busy outlining 31 'new' penalty points offences but took time to warn drivers that legislation for random breath testing was on the way. In the interim, existing laws would be used to increase the number of checkpoints at which suspected drink-drivers will be breathalysed, Cullen added.
So in other words, nothing will change until legislation is in place, whenever that may be. Drink drivers will not be quaking in their boots just yet.
Back at the ranch, at about the same time, Mary Harney was getting in on the act and told the Dáil that legislation would indeed be required for random breath testing adding: "The Minister for Transport will bring forward legislation as quickly as possible."
Opposition parties were rightly sceptical because we have been here before. Does anybody remember the network of speed cameras? First promised along with random breath testing six years ago and hyped up by another grand announcement late last year, legislation to allow the project to be operated privately still hasn't seen sight nor sound of Leinster House.
In August 2005, Mr Cullen said the privatisation decision was "a central part" of the Government's road safety strategy and legislation would be brought before the Dáil in the autumn. It didn't arrive. In November Cullen told a Dáil committee that legislation would be brought forward 'shortly' and more recently this year a spokesman for the Department said the legislation on speed cameras would be before the Dáil "in the first half of this year".
Even when legislation is brought forward, it is anybody's guess how long it will take to pass through the various stages required and it could be quite some time before it becomes a reality on the State's roads.
Similarly, with mobile phones, the Government has promised to outlaw the practice of using them while behind the wheel and again planned legislation has not yet been forthcoming. It is said to be in the "final stages" of preparation but it will be "towards the end of 2006 or into 2007" before any law will come into effect.
Legislation to complement a mobile phone ban was first brought forward and grandly announced by Bobby Molloy, then minister of state for the environment, in 2002. The then Garda Commissioner referred the legislation to the Attorney General for clarification, as the blanket ban would have included emergency services but the legislation was eventually withdrawn and hasn't been seen since.
Grand announcements make very nice headlines indeed, but are pretty ineffective in bringing about real change. If Mercedes announced in the morning that it planned to start selling a car that runs on tap water we would all be very excited. But if we were told the next day that they hadn't quite invented it yet and planned to do so "shortly" we wouldn't be ditching our gas guzzlers just yet.
The Government's latest road safety plans are great ideas, but announcing and re-announcing them will bring them no closer to reality and will not halt the ever-rising road death toll. On the last count 36 people were killed in crashes in January alone, three more than in January 2005. Last year 399 people died on our roads, the highest total since 2001.
Our most immediate hope, also announced last week, is a list of 31 extra penalty point offences, overdue for introduction for a number of years. The new offences are designed to crack down on lethal behaviour on our roads such as dangerous overtaking and crossing a continuous white line.
The offences will be introduced on April 1st next, but this too mush be treated with a "wait and see approach". In The Irish Times letters page yesterday Kevin Treacy from New Ross asked: "What is the point of having 31 more penalty-point offences if we can't enforce the four we have?". I couldn't have put it better myself.