Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

There is huge concern about the increased number of deaths on our roads with many of those who have died being young. Is it a issue of individual responsibility or of society not doing what could and should be done? Important issues of personal responsibility are involved. No one is denying that, but if I read the comments made by some Ministers in recent days carefully, I see an attempt to downplay the responsibility of society, the Government and State intervention in this.

For example, there is currently a €5 billion backlog of maintenance work on rural roads, that is a legacy of huge cutbacks in the austerity era. In addition, as society emerged from the austerity era, in a Government led by Fine Gael with former Deputy Shane Ross as Minister for Transport, budgets were cut by 15% and funding for local authorities to do work of this kind was cut by 30%. I agree with Deputy Paul Murphy's criticisms of the RSA, but I note that it asked the Minister for Transport for €6 million last year for road safety advertising and was turned down. Spinning the situation yesterday, it was announced that there is a €3 million budget being allocated after failures on the Government front in recent years.

I do not have time to develop the point that was raised about car culture. A big part of that is sports utility vehicles, SUVs. SUV sales are 13% per head of population above the EU average. Every time I see one of the big ones where people are high up with the bullbars on the front so that if there is a hit, it will be the person who is hit that will be injured, rather than the car being damaged. I do not have time to develop the point, but I want to come back to it soon.

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