Mr. Sam Waide:

I thank the committee and the Chair for the opportunity to speak to it this evening to give an update on the Government's road safety strategy for the period 2021-30. When I last met with the committee on 1 March, I outlined the transformational nature of Ireland's fifth Government road safety strategy, Our Journey Towards Vision Zero, and the focus on collaboration between key road safety partners, international experts and the public.

The road safety strategy is the first step towards achieving Vision Zero, which is the elimination of all road deaths and serious injuries on Irish roads by 2050. It aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Irish roads by 50% by 2030. In March, I advised the committee that this means reducing deaths on Ireland’s roads annually from 144 to 72 or lower and reducing serious injuries from 1,259 to 630 or lower by 2030. Unfortunately, we are meeting today against the backdrop of the recent rise in road traffic collision fatalities, which is of significant concern to the RSA. Accordingly, redoubling our collective efforts focused on road safety and delivering on the road safety strategy has to be an even more pressing priority for all of us.

The strategy is being delivered in three phases. Phase 1, which runs from 2021 to 2024, contains 50 high-impact actions and 136 support actions. The safe system approach underpinning the strategy emphasises shared responsibility among those who design, build, manage and use the roads and vehicles to prevent or reduce collision impacts and those who provide post-crash response to mitigate injury. Close collaboration between all partners is key to successful delivery and achieving the transformation and ambition within the road safety strategy. We have put strong governance structures in place to support this.

The road safety transformation partnership board, which is chaired by the Department of Transport and comprises senior representatives of the key State stakeholders, is governing delivery. It has met twice this year and will meet again this week to review progress in the first half of this year. The board of senior officials reports to the ministerial committee on road safety, which will meet in July. Funding, legislation and data have been identified as key enablers and individual programme groups are being established to remove blockers, identify opportunities and help advance delivery of the actions with dependencies in these areas. The RSA has mobilised a transformation management office to monitor and oversee delivery of the road safety strategy.

At this time, the vast majority of actions are on track and where challenges do arise, we are working with partner organisations in monitoring these closely to ensure they stay on track. While it is not possible to provide an update in this statement on all 186 actions, I will briefly mention some of those that were discussed when I last attended a meeting of this committee in March and some that are particularly relevant in light of recent trends in road fatalities. I am happy to submit a high-level written update on all of the actions following the road safety transformation partnership board meeting this week.

As of this morning, there have been 83 road user fatalities in 2022 to date. My thoughts go out to those families who have suffered loss and who are affected. Along with colleagues from An Garda Síochána and the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, I attended a special meeting convened by the Ministers for Transport and Justice. We discussed the key issues in detail and the urgent next steps that must be undertaken to further protect people on our roads. Further to this, the RSA, in collaboration with An Garda Síochána, has been examining all available data to develop an understanding of the circumstances of these collisions with a view to refining and tailoring our targeted interventions, including up-weighting our awareness campaigns on national media, to prevent any further loss of life.

Specific activities include an in-depth review of the profile of fatal and serious injury collisions by time of day to inform education and enforcement activity acknowledging the recent re-emergence of fatalities occurring late at night or early in the morning at weekends, which is action 106 in the action plan relating to the strategy, and a review of timings and focus of key public awareness activities in light of emerging data on 2022 fatality trends, which is action 21. In the context of action 21, we are developing new public awareness campaigns in response to emerging road safety issues, including campaigns relating to the increase in fatalities in 2022 highlighting the importance of using the roads safely to prevent further road trauma, 80km/h roads in light of the higher number of fatalities occurring on higher-speed rural roads and male drivers in light of the stark evidence that the majority of driver fatalities are male and those detected committing traffic offences are overwhelmingly male.

I will highlight progress relating to three of the high-impact actions for 2022. Under action 6, the working group established to examine and review the framework for the setting of speed limits and to consider the introduction of a 30km/h default speed limit in urban areas has met on a number of occasions. It is reviewing the existing system for setting and managing speed limits to identify strengths, weaknesses and gaps and to develop policy recommendations. A number of activities are under way, including the County and City Management Association conducting an inventory of 30km/h zones while the RSA is commissioning a research study on best practice speed limit management to inform the work of the group.

Under action 7, a task force has been established to share data and information on speeding, make recommendations and urgently implement any further measures identified to reverse the trend of non-compliance. This action is planned for July of this year in light of the importance of reducing speed for fatality reductions.

Under action 30, work is getting under way on reviewing the penalties for serious road traffic offences, including impaired driving, speeding, mobile phone use, non-wearing of seat belts and carrying unrestrained children in a vehicle. This action was initially due for completion in quarter four 2024 but I have requested that it be reprioritised for completion this year in light of the significant increase in fatalities to date.

My update has focused primarily on actions where the RSA is a lead or joint lead. We are all keenly aware of the important role enforcement plays in improving behaviour on our roads and this is an area where we work continuously with our colleagues in An Garda Síochána. I know that Assistant Commissioner Hilman will be updating the committee in this regard today.

I understand that Ireland is not alone in seeing fatality increases this year. However, we will never accept such horrific preventable losses of life, and must act now to reverse this devastating trend and to reduce serious injuries. The road safety transformation partnership board will be reporting back to the ministerial committee in July. With the support and commitment of the members, as political leaders, Government, the road safety transformation partnership board, our stakeholders and the public, we will implement the urgent next steps and priority measures and work together to save lives.