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

One thing we announced towards the end last year, and which TII is progressing, is a specific road safety intervention fund for, say, specific junctions or identified areas with specific road safety concerns. A TII team is actively working on that fund. There is a specific fund to support road safety interventions. I know that is a concern in certain communities where, as the Deputy said, there have been multiple collisions or accidents and an intervention is required. There is a fund there within the overall TII envelope to support road safety interventions and junctions that have a particular issue. There is an active team working on that and we can circulate more information to the committee. The Deputy is correct that engineering and road investment are additional components in the overall mix of priorities that make a difference from a road safety perspective.

Part of the reduction in road fatalities since the period prior to the road safety strategy in the late 1990s was due to the investment in our motorway network and in national primary roads, which have a much better safety record than we saw with the historical network. That is something we are doing. There are specific allocations in the context of protection of renewal allocations and a safety intervention fund with TII to support interventions at specific junctions and specific areas where concerns have been referenced from a road safety perspective.