Ms Paula Hilman:

I thank the committee for delaying this meeting. I was unable to attend last week so I thank the committee for its co-operation with me. I am the assistant commissioner with strategic lead in An Garda Síochána for the national roads policing bureau, community engagement, youth diversion and the events and public order. I am also responsible for the implementation of several of the recommendations contained in the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland's report. I am accompanied by Chief Superintendent Michael Hennebry from the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau, who co-ordinates and monitors the activities of the sections under the bureau. I am also accompanied by Superintendent Tom Murphy and Superintendent Sean O'Reardon from the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau

Road safety and roads policing remains a strategic priority for An Garda Síochána and is included in our policing plan 2022, which gives effect to our strategy statement 2022 to 24, which was published earlier this month. This continues to promote and enforce responsible behaviours on our roads reducing risk to vulnerable users through targeted prevention, intervention and enforcement activities working in partnership with the RSA.

I work collaboratively with statutory bodies and our interagency partners to strengthen our collaboration to achieve our collective vision and deliver road safety objectives through high-visibility operations, education and co-operation. Our partners include the RSA, the Health and Safety Authority; Transport Infrastructure Ireland; the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, the National Office of Traffic Medicine and victim advocacy groups such as the Irish Road Victims' Association and PARC. The preservation of life is a key priority for An Garda Síochána and this includes keeping our roads safe, protecting lives and reducing serious injuries on our roads.

I will now outline the structures and governance within An Garda Síochána to show how we deliver roads policing and how that links to the Government road safety strategy. I have strategic oversight of divisional roads policing units, which are under the control of each divisional officer. In the context of their performance, the divisional officers report to each of our four regional assistant commissioners.

Each regional assistant commissioner is also responsible for implementing and overseeing operations in his or her region to ensure that roads policing performance is achieved. Divisional roads policing inspectors lead at operational level and oversee divisional roads policing units, which are responsible for: enforcement of road traffic legislation including GoSafe; prevention activities; investigation; forensic collision investigators; and education. The current roads policing strength in An Garda Síochána, as of June 2022, is 724 members, which accounts for approximately 5% of our workforce.

A chief superintendent has been assigned a roads policing portfolio in each of our four regions. The selected chief superintendents represent their regions at monthly national roads policing co-ordination meetings convened and chaired by Chief Superintendent Hennebry of the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau, who is seated to my left. They have ownership and governance of roads policing at a regional level in the short and medium term until finalisation of the Garda Síochána operating model. The objective is to deliver a consistent approach to roads policing tasking and performance across our regions taking into account national and regional trends.

The annual national Garda Síochána roads policing operations plan, RPOP, is a significant contributor to the success of Garda roads policing enforcement operations and underpins and guides our enforcement strategy to keep all road users safe and to reduce serious injury and fatal road traffic collisions. The plan is evidence-based and data-led and represents current trends and statistics provided to us by the Garda Síochána analysis service. The roads policing operations plan is divided into four quarters that are monitored, reviewed and amended each quarter. This approach affords us the time and opportunity to regularly review and amend enforcement activity plans throughout the year and supports an agile response to identified trends in fatal and serious injury collisions. The Garda Síochána roads policing operations plan is aligned with a national communications plan and media strategy agreed in advance with the RSA. The RPOP also incorporates inter-agency enforcement operations with the Health and Safety Authority and the RSA.

Along with our counterparts, An Garda Síochána are significant stakeholders in the Government road safety strategy. With phase one of the action plan under way, with a timeline of 2021 to 2022, An Garda Síochána is responsible for leading or jointly leading 11 high-impact actions. Seven of these are led by An Garda Síochána and four are four led with other organisations. We are working closely with the RSA in progressing actions. We are also actively working as a support agency for 65 of the other Government road safety strategy actions.

I have covered our internal structures, which report to our internal performance framework. In terms of the Government road safety strategy, governance sits with the road safety transformation partnership board, of which I am a member. There are three working groups, data, finance and legislation, at which we are appropriately represented. The third accountability strand for An Garda Síochána is via the Policing Authority, to which I regularly report on roads policing. I thank members for their time today and am happy to provide more detail on any aspect of the high-level overview I have given them.