Ms Paula Hilman:

Good afternoon. I thank the committee for the opportunity to brief it on what we are doing, and what we plan to do for the last quarter of the year, in respect of road safety, especially given the devastating trend of road deaths that have occurred. We were greatly concerned about the increasing number of fatalities on our roads during 2022, which has continued on through this year. From 1 January to 25 September 2023, there have been 126 fatal road traffic collisions. To give some context, that is 21 collisions more than in the same period last year and 36 more than in 2019. This has resulted in 136 people tragically losing their lives, 26 more than in 2022 and 37 more than in 2019. I have cited numbers, but we in An Garda Síochána very much recognise the human impact and devastation that every road death has on families, friends and communities. Our local gardaí and family liaison officers have visited too many families over recent months and I would like to take this opportunity to extend our sincere and heartfelt condolences to all those who have suffered loss on our roads. One death on the road is one too many and my colleagues in An Garda Síochána and I are committed to working with our partners and communities to ensure that our roads are a safer place for all.

Road safety and roads policing are a strategic priority for us and are in our 2022–2024 strategy statement and our 2023 policing plan and will be in our 2024 policing plan, which is currently being developed. We are committed to promoting and enforcing responsible behaviours on our roads and reducing the risk to vulnerable road users through targeted information-led prevention and enforcement activities, working in partnership with the RSA, other statutory bodies and interagency partners to strengthen our collaboration on achieving the collective aim of Vision Zero and to deliver on our individual actions and partner actions within the Government's Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030.

Keeping People Safe is the mission statement of An Garda Síochána and this includes keeping people safe on our roads. To assist the committee, I will now outline the structures and governance of roads policing and roads policing performance that we have.

I have responsibility for the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau, which is based at Garda headquarters and led by a chief superintendent. The bureau is responsible for national policy development and implementation, equipment, training and partnership working to deliver the Government road safety strategy. This includes the development of national operational plans and providing operational colleagues with analytical products on trends and performance information.

The operational responsibility for roads policing sits with each divisional officer who reports into his or her own respective regional assistant commissioner, who is responsible for the roads policing performance in their region and for implementing and overseeing operations in the region. There is strong collaboration between me and the regional assistant commissioners and between the Garda national roads policing bureau divisional officers and divisional roads policing units.

I will briefly outline the structures and tasking that occurs. The roads policing operation plan is distributed quarterly. It is an information-led and intelligence-led plan for the tasking of roads policing personnel nationally. The focus of the operational plan is always on high visibility enforcement of the key lifesaver offences which include intoxicated driving, drink and drugs, speeding, wearing of seatbelts and mobile phone usage. This plan was previously published annually but is now published quarterly to enable us to be more agile and responsive to the trends we are seeing on our roads.

In line with Roadpol and international good practice, we issue a bank holiday roads policing operational order. This is produced and distributed before each bank holiday and followed up by a press release. Again, it is evidence-based and takes into account the trends in fatalities and serious injury in road traffic collisions for the previous 12 years that allows us to task then what we think will happen this year. Since the introduction of this evidence-based approach in August 2022, we have seen a positive trend in reduction in fatalities over bank holiday weekends. Unfortunately, this is not replicated at other times given the increase in fatalities in the year to date.

Roads policing tasking and co-ordination is taken at monthly meetings that were introduced in early 2022. These meeting are chaired by me and attended by the chief superintendent from the national bureau and four regional representatives who are there on behalf of their respective assistant commissioner. There is a set agenda, including detailed input by the roads policing analyst. Each regional attendee is provided with in-depth analysis of performance broken by region and division. Recent trends are discussed and communicated to ensure activity is focused in these areas. The Road Safety Authority, RSA, CEO and representatives of the RSA attend the last section of the meeting where educational outreach, media campaigns and partnership working are discussed and actions agreed, again, in response to trends. All this comes together and this in-depth analysis of performance is shared and used to inform the deputy commissioner and my own regional and divisional performance accountability meetings, which are held monthly.

I have mentioned our roads policing units and I am sure we will be talking more about them throughout the committee meeting. The activities of each divisional roads policing unit are managed by a designated inspector in that division. They are responsible for the enforcement and investigation of roads policing offences, preventative policing operations, forensic collision investigations and road safety engagement and education. As of today, the current strength of roads policing is 664 members out of a workforce of 13,910 Garda members. It is also important to note that the prevention, detection and prosecution of roads policing matters is not solely confined to roads policing units, and our colleagues on the front line, both in uniform and plain clothes, also contribute to road safety. In general, overall, 75% of roads policing offences are detected by roads policing personnel and 25% by other Garda members, with the exception of intoxicated driving when this trend is reversed. With regard to intoxicated driving, our members welcomed the new drug testing wipe that was introduced in December 2022. Committee members will hear more about that from Professor Cusack so I will not talk anymore about that at this point.

In terms of education and engagement, learned behaviours achieved through appropriate education throughout our lifetime are essential. We are committed to the work we do in educating road users about the dangers they may face or, indeed, cause by their actions. As an organisation, we fully support and work alongside the RSA in its education campaigns.

In addition to our Garda schools programme, our most recent education project with regard to road safety is now coming to fruition, namely, the Lifesaver Project, which will focus on young adults. We recently introduced the BikeSafe programme, which is focused on the education of motorcyclists. Garda motorcyclists provide both in-class advice and practical training with regard to the driving of motorcycles. We also make best use of social media channels to engage with the public in respect of road safety campaigns and messages and we work closely with the press office in this. "Crimecall" started again on Monday night we have a designated slot for roads policing. We will use this platform to relay specific messages, advice and appeals.

Before I conclude, it is important that we outline the significant investment we have made in technology as part of our modernisation programme. To date, just under 14,000 mobility devices have been issued to members. These devices enable gardaí to search records for information related to drivers and driver licences. The Garda traffic app has more than 8,400 users. The fixed charge notices, FCN, app now has more than 6,300 users. In 2022, more than 140,000 fixed charge notices were issued via the mobility platform. There is ongoing consultation with the Department of Transport driving licence section in developing systems that will allow us to access driving licence data. Initial developments in this area are already evident with the increase in detections of unaccompanied learner drivers, with 5,034 detections this year to date, an increase of 24% from 2019. We are currently in the final stages of developing the technology that will enhance our enforcement capabilities will be the introduction of the Irish motor insurance database, IMID, app, which will provide us with a real-time view of the insurance status of a driver at the roadside. This will be a game-changer in combatting the use of the roads by uninsured drivers. Our fleet currently stands at 332 vehicles, 98 of which are fitted with smart technology that alerts our members to the presence of untaxed or stolen vehicles, etc. We utilise mobile safety camera vans to enforce speed limits of our roads and have 1,571 locations approved nationally. As a result of an increase in funding, we are deploying them to a further seven divisions. I am sure I can outline those during the meeting.

To conclude, I assure the committee of An Garda Síochána’s commitment to playing our part in reducing death and serious injury on Irish roads. We will focus our efforts on education and enforcement and delivering our individual and partnership actions. Not underestimating our policing role on our part that we need to play in enforcement, enforcement alone will not deliver the transformation that is required and equally, road engineering and design are vital, as are the continued education programmes and transformational policy and investment. Engineering, education and enforcement, with significant advancements in technology in the use of safety cameras, are collaboratively required. That concludes my statement. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak today on this very important issue. Superintendent Murphy and I are happy to answer any questions and outline more of the work we have planned for this year and 2024.