Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ms Murdock stated that 35 pedestrians were killed on the roads in 2016 and seven pedestrians have been killed so far this year. I come from Dundalk and I have got a great education travelling to Dublin on a regular basis even with respect to cyclists. What can we do to improve road safety. Those figures are very high; 35 people left their home during the day or at night hoping to return home.

We have a number of education campaigns and we target from a very early age young people at pre-school, primary school and secondary school on the importance of high visibility gear. In the coming weeks, we will have our annual campaign involving the Seatbelt Sheriff and Hi Glo Silver which starts at the most impressionable age for young people about the importance of wearing hi-viz gear. Last year, we gave away over 1 million pieces of high visibility clothing. Anyone can go onto the website. We get a very positive response to the gear we give out there. Anyone can see the multiple "Operation Transformation" people out there doing the group community walks, all of whom are in their RSA hi-viz gear. We are open to working with community groups. We have our road safety officers going around the country to schools, community groups and GAA clubs and we are very open to engaging with interest groups on that to help promote the importance of the high visibility gear. In 2017, the pubs definitely have a role to play because many of those killed were probably coming home from the pub. They made the choice not to drive but to walk and tragically-----