Mr. Michael Finn:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the opportunity to address them. My colleagues, Chief Superintendent Aidan Reid and Superintendent Con O'Donohue, are very experienced members of the Garda traffic bureau. This is my first appearance here in my new role. If I do not have all the answers to all the questions, I will revert to my two colleagues.

The Garda Síochána has a very important role to play in road safety, given that we are the primary enforcement agency. Our goal is to save lives and reduce the number of families who suffer the trauma of losing a loved one. We are committed to ensuring our roads are a safe place for all who use them regardless of where they live, the day or the time of year. We are out there every day of the year, including Christmas Day. Unfortunately, this is the nature of policing and road fatalities. In our enforcement role, we are very committed to putting more people into traffic to enforce our road traffic legislation. We are committed to making greater use of our analytics and technology in order that we can have smarter policing. We are committed to ensuring all our activities are focused on achieving the outcomes we have set out in the Government road safety strategy to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads.

As of last Friday, our collision data were on a par with 2016. Today we are up on the same period last year by two fatalities. On the way here this morning, we got news of another fatality. There is some good news in that our serious injury accidents are down 30% on last year. Last year, our fatalities increased by 16% or 18%. It was very disappointing for us. The previous year was a very good year for us and it was our lowest year on record. It is disappointing to see an upward trend again. The chart in my written submission shows there is a good news story in that we have reduced the number of fatalities and serious injuries. We cannot be complacent. The statistics for 2016 show the necessity for all of us to be more focused on and committed to reducing the number of fatalities on the roads.

Drivers and passengers of vehicles continue to be the category in which we see the greatest impact in fatalities. Last year, 35 pedestrians died, which is 19%. The bulk of the fatal accidents occurred in the 100 km/h and 80 km/h zones, which are our national primary routes and national regional routes. Only approximately 4% of accidents take place on motorways. This reinforces the significant role our road engineering plays in road safety.

The 16 to 35 age group are the cohort that account for most of the fatalities. There were 79 fatalities in this age group last year. The other cohort in which we see high numbers of fatalities are those aged 66 and over. They accounted for 44 fatalities last year, which represents 23% of our accidents. Pedestrians and cyclists make up a large part of that group. As people get older, their chances of being able to survive a road accident are reduced. It is a serious cause of concern. We are still very much focused on our Government target of reducing fatalities to 124 and serious injuries to 330 by 2020. It is a major challenge. While we realise we cannot do it alone, we have a very significant role to play. There have been very good news stories for Ireland and where we have come from. We are joint fifth or sixth in the EU for the number of fatalities per million. We still have a lot to do.

Despite the drop in our numbers, our level of enforcement has remained proportionally high over recent years. Driving under the influence has an impact on approximately 29% to 30% of fatalities. Of the cohort involved in those fatal accidents, approximately one third have no insurance and 15% are driving while disqualified. This is a very serious concern when we link those three statistics together. In 2016, we had a 9% increase in our drink-driving and our checkpoints were up 2%.

Our Christmas campaign was very successful in the impact it had. We had a very positive, strong media campaign which captured the attention of the entire community, not just our own people within the organisation. We also increased our enforcement activity for Christmas. Early indications we had after a week or two that there was a spike in drink-driving reinforced our vigour for our Christmas campaign. At the end of it, there had been a 34% increase in drink-driving. While it is not a good news story, it shows the level of drink-driving. We had improved our rate of compliance with drink-driving laws. This evidence shows there is a serious issue which we need to tackle. To date in 2017, the trend for driving under the influence seems to be continuing. There has been a 14% increase this year so far. We have not got the message out to everybody. We will focus on the message.

We issue fixed charge notices, FCNs, for drink-driving and we have issued more than 5,700 since 2011. Almost 50% of them are in the 50 to 80 mg per 100 ml blood alcohol category, followed by 31% in the over 80 mg per 100 ml category. The 20 to 180 mg per 100 ml "specified driver" category accounts for 20%. There is a 75% payment of these FCNs, which means our time in court is reduced significantly. Any garda will say one of the most contentious cases is going to court to contest a drink-driving case. To have 75% of the charges paid up front without having to go near court is a great saving for us. It means we have more people out on the road longer rather than sitting in a court. The FCN is a positive story for us.

In 2017, we will have roadside breath testing for cannabis, cocaine, opiates and benzodiazepines. For the fist time, we will have an offence of exceeding a specified limit for the presence of cannabis, cocaine and heroin. We will be able to take people to court. In the past, we had to prove impairment as well as the presence of the drugs. With technology, we can measure the amount of each of those drugs in the system. We welcome it and look forward to being able to enforce the legislation.

Speed is very important to us, given that it is a factor in approximately one third of accidents. It is very much in our focus. Speed plays an even more significant role in fatalities among motorcyclists. It is one of our top priorities. I recently saw a survey that stated one in five people admitted exceeding the speed limit. This statistic tells a story. However, 80% of people are complying. There is a high level of compliance. Our GoSafe vans in the speed enforcement zones have proved very successful. There is approximately 99% compliance with the vans. Their presence is impacting on road safety and reducing speeds.

That is a very good news story and we will certainly be continuing that programme. We signed a new contract with GoSafe and we will roll out and extend that programme. The committee may not be aware that we extended the number of speed detection zones last year, going from approximately 770 to over 1,000. That means there were 355 new speed detection zones around the country. We still get inquiries from various communities around the country asking why they do not have such a zone. They have proven to have a very positive impact in reducing fatalities within the zones. When we started, 30% of fatalities occurred in those zones, but five or six years later that rate is down to 15%. It certainly had an impact. We will not be able to maintain that because we have extended the number of zones and it will take a while before we come to that level again as we increase our coverage across the country. The speed detection zones and the GoSafe vans are a good news story for us on the speeding issue.

I was looking at some statistics on the detections for those GoSafe vans before I came here today. If we compare the volume of traffic coming through on a daily basis with the increase in fines, there is an increase in the level of compliance with speed limits across the country. That arises when we factor in the increased amount of traffic and the amount of detections. It is certainly a good news story overall and we will pursue it. There is a very high rate of compliance with regard to speed limits. Our role is not all about detections and we are quite happy to have GoSafe vans out there and reducing the number of people caught speeding. Our role is about getting compliance through enforcement. We are not out to catch people, although sometimes we are accused of that. To me, we are successful if we are catching fewer people. It would be good news for all of us and the GoSafe vans have proved it.

With regard to general to general road traffic enforcement, there were fixed charge notices, FCNs, for all sorts of offences last year. We issued over 326,000 fixed charge notices for offences relating to speed, safety belt usage, a lack of tax and so on. Like the FCNs for drink-driving, there is a 74% payment rate for them. When I was a young garda, every time we detected an offence relating to speed or anything else, we ended up going to court to prosecute. The gardaí spent a significant proportion of their time in court but now we have an almost 75% payment rate, our gardaí will not have to spend that much time in court. The FCN statistics are another good news story.

From June this year we will have a third payment option. In the past, a person going to court could argue that a notice was not received but that excuse will no longer be valid; the day a person gets a summons for court, he or she also gets the option to pay the fine instead of going to court. A person cannot then go to court and say he or she would have paid the fine if he or she got the opportunity. We will now give people the opportunity to pay the fine, which will have an impact on the number of cases of people going to court and people getting off with speeding because of an argument that the fine was not received. That loophole will also have a good impact on enforcement. We will have online payment facilities for non-penalty point offences. If there is a fine for not displaying tax, a person can go online and pay the fine, as people do for most utilities nowadays. That will assist us and the motoring public.

Non-use of seat belts and mobile phone usage are in our category of "killer offences". Our enforcement strategy for 2017 will be very much focused on that. Last year we had approximately 10,000 FCNs for not wearing a seat belt. By and large, that has reduced significantly over the years. I had a look and ten years ago the number was something like 22,000. The level of compliance is there and even in modern cars, the alerts are there and people are more compliant. There are people who are still out there committing these offences and, unfortunately, it has a very significant impact when somebody is involved in a collision and is not wearing their seat belt. Our road safety campaigns have illustrated the issue only too well. The other area I should flag as a cause of concern for us is mobile phone usage. Despite technology and people having the facilities of hands-free kits in their car, there are still many people out there using mobile phones on a daily basis in cars. They are probably a silent killer in road traffic accidents. It is very hard to detect their usage after the incident but surveys carried out by the Road Safety Authority suggest the level of usage is still ongoing. We will certainly target that in 2017.

Another area in which we have seen significant activity is taking a number of vehicles off the road that are either defective or where people are using them with no insurance etc. Last year we saw an increase, with an additional 6,000 vehicles taken off the road. We are talking about 30,000 cars seized from the public because of no insurance or something seriously defective in the car. That level of activity will continue because those people are putting other road users at risk either with vehicles being defective or having no insurance to drive those cars. We welcome any new legislation to help in that regard.

With regard to the policing plan for 2017, as I stated at the outset the killer offences of speeding, impaired driving caused by mobile phone usage and non-use of seat belts will certainly be targeted. We are very determined to maximise our full potential in terms not just of using the traffic corps but the district personnel we have in every Garda station around the country. We got massive buy-in at Christmas time with the extra contribution they made. They did more checkpoints than we did in the traffic area. That is something we need to leverage and our policing plan for 2017 is built very much around that type of engagement. We have more people out there in every division and Garda station around the country because of the new recruitment campaign. There are 800 new gardaí on the streets and we want to engage with them, ensuring they are tuned into traffic and focused in terms of road traffic policing for 2017. We certainly see them as having great potential and being a great asset to us. They are young and energetic and we want to exploit that.

Roads policing is very much about depriving all the criminals on the road and we have had some good success. The other day we had a checkpoint on the N7 and with the use of our automatic number plate recognition technology we were able to "ping" somebody passing by who we knew has an interest in drugs. Lo and behold, we made a significant drugs seizure from that. I suppose that is smart policing in terms of using all our resources to our benefit. Our enforcement campaigns do not have to relate solely to drink-driving or traffic and they can be useful in a cross-section of elements. Using technology can be of great advantage to us in that regard so it is up to us to leverage that and make more of it in future. As I stated, we have shown with GoSafe and robot vans that we can detect more people initially, which results in more compliance. Technology will help us and we can leverage it in that regard. Chief Superintendent Reid will describe later his initiative with the port tunnel where we will put in cameras and use technology to detect people speeding through the tunnel. We have the technology and capabilities so the investment in a modernisation programme for An Garda Síochána will give us opportunities to leverage that and do more with less, which is what we are trying to achieve.

There are other initiatives we are involved with through the year. We are involved in many of the European Union operations and we work with agencies such as the Road Safety Authority, the Health and Safety Authority and the Revenue Commissioners. There are multi-agency checkpoints and it is not just about policing; there are other agencies with an interest and our working together has been very beneficial to us in the past. Our public awareness campaign was very much about complementing the Road Safety Authority and media campaign for Christmas and it is very useful to us. We have a big following on Twitter and Facebook and we get great feedback when we put up a car seized for driving with no insurance or tax, for example. The public welcomes us doing that and we can use that as a message to get out there to the cohort who drive and use social media as their method of engagement. They do not read The Irish Timesor listen to RTE 1. We must focus on them and consider how to engage with them through the likes of Twitter and Facebook. That has been very beneficial for us so far.

We also go to schools with the Road Safety Authority's safety programme. We have taken road shows out there.

It has had an impact on tomorrow's drivers. If we engage with them today and get them into good practices we will reap the benefits.

I am sure the committee is interested in resources, which have been a challenge for us. Over the past five years the numbers in the traffic corps have declined, as did the numbers in the organisation. The numbers are in my presentation. New graduates are coming out of Templemore however, and the Commissioner has agreed to a 10% increase in the traffic corps for 2017. Only last week I brought a proposal to her that we would bring each of the 800 people now in training into the traffic corps for a ten-week cycle so that they get an appreciation of the importance of the role they have to play in road traffic. We can give them the experience and tools so that when they are out doing their day-to-day work, they will be focused on traffic. The impact of that this year will bring benefits for enforcement and getting the message out on road safety.

We are not too badly off for new cars and equipment. Last year the investment came and we have new high-powered cars for the motorways. That helps us to have a presence. There are several initiatives in the pipeline for working with the driver licence and Superintendent O'Donohue will allude to that shortly. We can do much more if we link with the agencies such as the Road Safety Authority, RSA, on the licences and the courts. Utilising technology we can do much more, faster and better, which will increase our presence on the road.