Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Road Safety Strategy: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Photo of Kevin O'KeeffeKevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives of the various groups. I suggest that if the sugar beet industry was still in operation, we would see a bit more blood and bandage between the tractor operators and the lorry drivers. Issues like road safety and hedge cutting have been mentioned. Cyclists are becoming more common on our roads. There has been an increase in paperwork. We have heard from the Irish Road Haulage Association about CPC courses, etc. A person who decides to become a lorry driver is out of pocket by almost €5,000 by the time he or she has the full qualifications to drive a lorry. I welcome the EU directive that has ensured that road driving qualifications from other countries are now recognised in this country. I am concerned about the language barriers in some cases. When our enforcement officers pull over a haulier who is a foreign national and there is a language barrier, how do they go about ensuring he or she is fully qualified? Will Ms Murphy tell us whether there are mechanisms in place to deal with such problems if they arise on site?

I have concerns about good manners on the roads. I might have to contact the farm operators about this issue. Outside the motorways, our roads are not big enough to carry heavy goods vehicles. This often causes frustration among drivers. It has been suggested that the drivers of heavy goods vehicles should pull inside the yellow line, but there are roads that do not have a yellow line for them to do this. I mentioned the sugar beet industry because I remember that when I was a county councillor, we were unable to get a dual carriageway so we asked the council to provide lay-bys at regular intervals along the N72 and N73 so that heavy goods vehicles could pull in to allow faster moving traffic to pass by. I am trying to say that drivers should show goodwill by pulling in where that is possible. It is understandable that there are places where drivers cannot pull in, but they should do so where that is possible. It is up to the Minister to provide good roads and to ensure good surfaces are in place.

I do not intend to ask too many questions, but I would like to raise an unrelated matter. A new regulation that was introduced last year to specify the tonnage that a lorry can carry was based on the number of axles on each lorry. Perhaps Ms Murphy would like to elaborate on this issue. Who determines how safe a vehicle is when it is on the road? Who makes a determination with regard to factors like tonnage and laden weight when loads are being carried? The day of a Fordson Major pulling a small single-axle silage trailer is well gone. We are on the same roads. I am talking about road safety. Maybe Mr. Farrell and Mr. Lee should be asking questions of the other witnesses who are here today. They are making a case for a way to improve road safety. I ask them to comment on the submissions we have received from the contractors and the road hauliers. Have they found any flaws in those submissions?

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