Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I was not able to be here for all of the discussion because I had another engagement. However, I read all of the briefing documents and the opening statements and I was here at the start. I watched online the RSA’s launch of the strategy back in December and its chairperson, Liz O'Donnell, is a former Deputy from my area, so I certainly fully support the work the RSA has done, which has been phenomenal in bringing the figures down. In 1972, there were close to 600 deaths a year at a time when there were far fewer cars on the road, although cars were not as safe in terms of seat belts and other equipment. I fully support the work of the RSA.

I get from the briefing documentation the 30 km/h issue in that Ireland seems to be a good bit further behind than many other countries. Although I had not been on the M50 for a long time, I happened to be on it recently and I was coming off at an exit which has a 30 km/h limit on the loop from the M50 to the M7. Even when I was trying to do 30 km/h, everyone was flying past me. If we put a camera there, we would find there is not a single car that is doing 30 km/h or anything like it. I look at the arterial roads in Donnybrook, Ranelagh, Rathmines and Stillorgan. If we were to make all of those roads 30 km/h in the morning, I could not see many people doing 50 km/h half of the time. Obviously, they are stuck in traffic when in traffic, but when the traffic is not there, the challenge is to get them to even do 50 km/h. I apologise if I am repeating questions that were already asked. How do we get people to slow down? Is there telemetry that can do this? Hopefully, we are transitioning to electric cars and so on. As I drive near a school or into a town centre, could there be some type of beam that tells my car that it can only do 30 km/h and it slows me down from whatever speed I am doing towards 30 km/h in a measured way, and the car just does not let me go any faster than that? Is that technology there?

I imagine it is there but can it be enforced? Can we insist on every new car being that way? It is not the job of the RSA and I know insurance companies do their own thing. However, insurance companies could say to people that if they put the equipment in their car, the insurance company will give them a significant discount when it tracks their behaviour and sees what they are doing.

I was recently on a motorway for the first time in about six months. I was doing no more than the speed limit at any stage but there were plenty of cars going past me and the speed limit was much higher than 30 km/h. I wonder how enforceable it is. I know we can enforce it in certain areas and, for example, in a built-up housing estate there are ramps and potentially a lot of parked cars which force people to slow down, but how do we get people to drive at 30 km/h? I see many people will not even do 50 km/h or 60 km/h in the areas where that is the speed limit. I live in a built-up urban area in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, where I sometimes see this in housing estates. If people could do 50 km/h and stick to it, that would be a good start, in my opinion, but how do we get all of us to drive at 30 km/h?