Ms Moyagh Murdock:

That is no problem at all. I have taken some notes and I will try to deal with them in order. Senator Brennan asked about the schools issue. The RSA recognises fully that this is an issue. It must be pointed out that some of the offenders are parents themselves, who can impede the safe depositing of kids from vehicles, including buses, and create a hazard which should not exist. When they have finished depositing their kids, they head off. Travelling at 30 km/h, or even 20 km/h, would be too fast in and around that area. Through our road safety education officers, the authority is working closely with schools to try to generate campaigns within the schools. Some schools have put in place effective measures which are very disciplined at the school gates. The school transport system and Bus Éireann have worked towards getting consolidated drop-off points. In some areas, there will be three or four schools in the one locality and it is mayhem unless there is a dedicated pick-up and drop-off zone from where the kids can walk safely to the school.

Speed ramps would be appropriate in some locations. Some more rural locations have schools on main roads. I see one near Frenchpark on the way back to Ballina from Dublin. There is a school on a main road. It has flashing lights and, during school hours, these are fully active. They alert drivers to slow down from the national speed limit to a safe limit going past the school. This type of measure can prove very effective. It is not certain whether it would be practical to put in speed bumps in those sort of areas. They may not be suitable in some locations, but there must be some sort of alert system to tell a driver he or she is in a locality with children in the area and that it is necessary to respond appropriately.

Schools can, together with the RSA in terms of its education and promotion functions, local authorities, the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, look at specific needs within the school. We fully support that approach. It is a high risk area. Children have been killed and injured getting off buses near schools. In the United States, it is a federal offence to overtake a school bus when the flashing lights are on. That is how the safety of school children alighting from and getting on school buses is addressed there. It is a zero tolerance approach. Various measures are available. We have looked into having lights on school buses, but private vehicles are just as much a risk area. A combined effort by the school community, parents, local authorities and our road safety officers is needed in and around schools as well as enforcement by the Garda.

Deputy Fleming raised the issue of investment. The progress which has been made in the past ten years in road safety is in no short measure due to the improved infrastructure we have in the country. Our motorways are our safest roads and it is critical that we continue with that upfront investment in road construction, including rural and national roads as well as motorways. There also needs to be a proactive maintenance programme. We need to fund it and to provide the necessary resources. The RSA fully supports that. A ministerial review will be held in early May involving all stakeholders, not just the RSA. The National Roads Authority, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, local authorities and county council management will be involved. We need to focus on all of these issues. We need to continue in our approach and not lose the focus on road safety. That is a risk not just in Ireland, but across Europe. Road safety can slip down the priority list. The EU road safety commissioner is making it a priority that this does not happen. We are coming out of recession and we want to ensure that road safety gets as much investment and focus as it previously did. That will remain part of our strategy from 2013 to 2020. There are a number of key items on road infrastructure and maintenance on which we have to continue to deliver.

In terms of our summer campaigns, we have community groups and our road safety officers operate all year round, not just during school time. The number of road deaths increases during the summer months. This results from a combination of factors. The good weather in the past two years has facilitated more healthy lifestyles, including cycling, walking and playing in open greens. This has resulted in a lot more children, pedestrians and cyclists on the roads. Cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists, motorcycling being an option for touring around Ireland, were most impacted in terms of an increase in the number of fatalities. It is really important that the message is out there during the summer months that we are looking out for remiss drivers and that the enforcement is there too.

Last year, the number of driver deaths fell by approximately 20%. Our drivers are safer but our vulnerable road users felt the impact. Unfortunately, people still allow themselves to be carried in a car without putting on a seat belt and drivers allow passengers to sit in the back seat without wearing seat belts. This has also had an impact. We have a summer campaign lined up. In collaboration with the Garda, our bank holiday June message will be coming out and we will be doing various other things over the summer.

Lay-bys were mentioned. These are a matter for the National Roads Authority and part of its road safety structure. Tiredness is a big contributor to fatal collisions. We estimate one in five drivers will suffer from driver fatigue and end up in a very serious if not fatal collision. It is another form of impairment. Statistics show that if someone has been awake for 17 hours or more, he or she has the same impairment as someone who is drunk at just under the legal limit of 0.5 milligrammes. It has the same impact. A driver needs to have a proper rest and to stop for a break, a coffee and a 15 minute refresh. Impairment through fatigue is a serious risk.

We have a lot of signage in our leaflets and our promotional material for tourists and foreign drivers coming into the country. We work with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport as well as Tourism Ireland to improve signage reminding people to drive on the left in hire cars and around airports.

Deputy Brendan Griffin mentioned our views on culture. The culture in the 1990s was extremely complacent and accepting of bad driver behaviour, be it drink driving, lack of enforcement or the quashing of penalty points. All of that led to an increase in the number of road deaths above what should be socially acceptable. Drink driving is nowadays considered very anti-social. We hope to see the same change of culture in respect of technology, which is probably one of the biggest threats to safe driving in the future. Children are being brought up with it at their fingertips. It is being strapped to the headrests in cars. Even that must be a distraction for drivers. We need to educate our children to understand that when they graduate from the passenger seat to the driver seat, they need to leave the technology behind. This will be a big cultural challenge and we will have to work together to do it. We are starting with education. We have primary and secondary school campaigns. We are about to launch a junior cycle programme as part of the junior certificate which will be dedicated to road safety. That will have a big impact. Road safety will be part and parcel of the lives and psychology of young people growing up. Through pester power, they will tell their parents how to drive safely. We will do it not just through education, but through engineering and enforcement also.

Technology is a primary tool I want to use during my tenure as chief executive. We need to use technology to improve roads and to combat the challenges technology poses for us. Smart speed detection from GPS technology is being introduced in new vehicles. Lane drift technology is already mandatory on new commercial vehicles. It is mandatory that they have an ISA system, which is intelligent speed assist built through GPS.

If one is in a foreign country and accidentally exceeds the speed limit or drifts into a speed zone on an unfamiliar road, the technology will be available in new vehicles. New commercial vehicles, including trucks and buses, will be required to have this technology. The lane drift technology to alert a driver who may be falling asleep at the wheel is currently available. We welcome the contribution these new technologies make to road safety because they will help to change the culture.