I beg to move the following amendment: Leave out all after “introduce” and insert:

“a wide ranging strategy involving all relevant agencies, including measures reflecting international best practice, to tackle the problem; with particular attention paid to those most likely to be involved in road traffic accidents.”

The Democratic Unionist Party has always given priority to the issue of road safety. In the Environment Committee, the former Chairman, Dr McCrea, and I pursued a strong line on road safety. It was the work of that Committee that led to the Department of the Environ-ment (DOE) introducing more road safety officers to schools.

The Committee also highlighted the issue of driving while on drugs, which was not being taken seriously by anybody at the time. The facts presented to the Committee were that over 20% of people involved in fatal road incidents had drugs in their bloodstream. Some 4% of that 20% had taken legally prescribed drugs and around 20% illegal drugs — of which over 12% was cannabis. It is nonsense to say that cannabis does not have many side effects. People are dying on the roads on a weekly basis because of the use of cannabis and because they have taken a car out after taking cannabis.

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Wells] in the Chair)

The Committee also did a rigorous report on school transport. I regret that we did not have an Assembly to follow through on the issues raised in that report. Following the report, Members have had all the excuses and prevarication that one might expect from direct rule Ministers. They have said that there is no money to reduce the number of children per school bus seat from three to two, for example; that there is no money available to put seat belts into buses or to resolve the issue of standing in buses. That may be an argument on finance. However, there is enough money in the Department to have the high hazard signs fitted on buses, to put on flashing lights and to take many of the other steps proposed in that report. I do not think that it is too badly off to do that or to take many of the steps proposed in the report that do not carry such a huge financial burden as others.

In the South of Ireland, five young schoolgirls were killed on a bus, and a more recent incident took place in London. We cannot take it for granted that incidents like those will not happen in Northern Ireland. Everybody will be wringing their hands and asking why it has happened, and the excuse will be that we did not have the money to do it.

I have particular concerns about the speed limits in Northern Ireland. They need to be revised, on the advice of those who have relevant experience. I understand, from people involved with road traffic accidents and who have a fair degree of expertise in making assessments about them, that current speed limits are not fit for purpose. They are not relevant. For example, there are places where the speed limit is too high and others where it is too low. One finds a 30-miles-per-hour speed limit outside many schools, where there is great danger, with young children going about and a lot of parked cars, yet people can legitimately drive there at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. Again, motorways were designed in the 1960s. Cars at that time were the Ford Anglia, the Hillman Imp and, for the well-to-do, the Ford Corsair. They certainly did not have the adaptive breaking system, side-impact bars and all the equipment that modern cars have. In many instances, the 70-miles-per-hour speed limit is too slow for the motorway. It does nothing for road safety to have such a speed limit. In other places, the speed limit is too high, and that should also be addressed. My party therefore has many major concerns about road safety.

I support the road safety advertising campaigns. I have met with those behind them. We discussed whether such advertising campaigns should be run on a national basis, and whether GB advertising campaigns should be used in Northern Ireland. They are very expensive to make, and the cost runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. However, it was demonstrated that Northern Ireland has particular issues with regard to road safety. It has its own problems and intricacies. In conjunction with marketing experts, the Department was able to identify them, and the decision was taken to choose a more expensive, Northern Ireland based, advertising campaign. That was a correct decision; and that is the reason that the amendment is worded as it is.

Road safety is a Northern Ireland issue, with problems particular to here, and it should be dealt with on a Northern Ireland basis. What happens in other jurisdictions is for others to deal with. There is potential for a degree of co-operation on some aspects, but advertising campaigns and other road safety measures should be on a Northern Ireland basis. It would be impossible to organise these on the all-Ireland basis suggested by Sinn Féin because a completely different system operates in the Republic, with different speed limits. The Republic’s road safety problem is greater than that of Northern Ireland, and I wish the Government of the Irish Republic well in reducing the number of deaths that take place there. I welcome the European aspect that is being delivered, whereby those who break the law in one jurisdiction cannot drive in another. That, however, is a European, as opposed to an all-Ireland, aspect. Northern Ireland has its own particular road safety issues. The Northern Ireland Assembly has a responsibility to address the issues that prevail here and to concentrate on its own affairs.