Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We know that increased activity over bank holiday weekends is a key factor. Looking at the trends here and globally, there are higher numbers of collisions and often higher numbers of deaths. I can set out some of the research from Australia which tracked this over a number of years to give an example of how changing the periodic offences makes a difference. To give some context, RSA collision data show that the May bank holiday weekend, for example, is a very high-risk period. We know there is an evidence base that bank holiday weekends are higher-risk, with a higher number of people on the road for travel, holiday reasons or whatever else. Seven people have been killed and 83 seriously injured over that weekend in the past five years. We know that over the May bank holiday weekend in 2022 there were 2,800 speed incidents, 154 motorists driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and 91 drivers not wearing a seatbelt. The June bank holiday weekend, since 2018, has seen 20 fatalities and 94 serious injuries. When this was studied, and when they changed this in Australia, where the penalties for such specific periods were increased, it had an impact in that fatal collisions in those periods decreased by 20% over a number of years and fatal collisions where speed was a factor decreased by 52%. There is therefore a clear evidence base that education, enforcement and higher penalties during specific periods have made a significant difference and have saved lives during those periods.