Dr. Keith Walsh:

I thank the committee for inviting the Department of Transport to talk about the important issue of road safety. I have responsibility at assistant secretary general level in the Department for road transport services and for the Department’s national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, database of licensed drivers and registered vehicles. I am accompanied by Tomás Campbell, the head of the Department’s road safety division.

The national framework for road safety is the Government’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030. The strategy aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries by half this decade and put us on the path towards Vision Zero, which is to say, as close as possible to no deaths or serious injuries by 2050. The strategy is being implemented in three phases, allowing for iteration and reprioritisation across the decade based on emerging road safety trends. Phase 1 ran from 2021 to 2024 and saw 169 actions implemented.

The phase 2 action plan was published in July and runs until the end of 2027. This plan identifies 12 primary actions that we believe to be transformative in nature. This is aligned with the safe systems approach, a methodology adopted by the European Commission and many member states. Key actions include the reduction of speed limits, the scaled-up usage of safety cameras, enhanced and alternative judicial sanctions, including graduated penalties, the potential introduction of alcohol interlocks and speed awareness courses, and an increased focus on road safety education, for example, building on excellent work done by the RSA in its transition year programme.

The phase 2 action plan is co-ordinated by the Department and led by the road safety leadership group, chaired by the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney. A road user safety forum was established to give a range of road user and road safety advocates an opportunity to contribute to the phase 2 plan. That forum will continue as a consultative body into phase 2 by looking at implementation and emerging issues.

I know my colleagues from the RSA will provide the committee with information on the current trends in deaths and serious injuries, so I will not go into detail. However, it is important to place our current position in context. Coming out of Covid, 2022 and 2023 saw shocking increases in the number of deaths on our roads. This trend continued into the first quarter of 2024. In the period since then, there have been renewed and sustained efforts by all of the key partners in road safety, led by those who are with us around the committee table today. The number of deaths has stopped increasing and has at least stabilised. This is not to be complacent. One death is one too many, and we are all rightly focused on achieving Vision Zero. However, we have to recognise that we have a growing population and a growing workforce, which means more people on our roads. The evidence from Ireland and elsewhere is clear that had we not acted, as road safety leaders, we would be facing a higher number of deaths. This is why we need to continue to act.

The Department of Transport has a dual role in road safety. As well as the co-ordination of the Government’s road safety strategy that I have outlined, the Department also has a number of areas where we have direct actions to take. The Road Traffic Act 2024 was concise and targeted legislation. It was introduced to address some of the most dangerous driving behaviours at a time when road safety trends were significantly deteriorating. Under the Act, mandatory drug testing is now carried out at the scene of serious collisions on the same basis as alcohol. This has been supported by the provision of tens of thousands of rapid drug testing kits to An Garda Síochána by the Department’s Medical Bureau of Road Safety. Moreover, under the 2024 Act, in February 2025, the default speed limit on local rural roads was reduced from 80 km/h to 60 km/h in line with the findings of the speed limit review. The next phase will be to reduce speed limits in urban areas to 30 km/h, where appropriate. This will be done by local authorities via special speed limits, and it will be supported by new guidelines to be issued by the Department of Transport.

The national vehicle and driver file Bill 2025 had its general scheme approved by the Government in April and is on the priority drafting list for the current legislative term. I thank the committee for its assistance in waiving pre-legislative scrutiny to aid the rapid progress of the Bill. This Bill will ensure that local authorities have direct access to collision data to inform their road safety investment decisions. The Bill will also abolish the requirement for drivers to display a paper motor tax disc on their windscreens. The Bill modernises the legal basis for the exchange of data between the Department and An Garda Síochána. Recent months have seen the Department and An Garda Síochána work closely together to move towards real-time access to the NVDF for front-line Garda members. The Department and An Garda Síochána also worked together, with insurance industry partners, to establish the Irish motor insurance database, known as IMID, which has been very successfully deployed, as can be seen through the marked increase in vehicle seizures by gardaí. The Department commenced, from 1 April 2025, the requirement for insurers to gather driver numbers from policyholders and verify these against disqualifications on the NVDF database before providing an insurance policy. Work is also under way on the next road traffic Bill, which will be focused on the programme for Government commitment to the introduction of graduated speeding penalties.

As the committee will be aware, road traffic legislation is complex. The most recent consolidated legislative basis is the Road Traffic Act 1961, and the subsequent decades have seen dozens of pieces of new legislation passed. Although urgent issues are addressed where they arise, errors and gaps are sometimes identified in the legislation, and these can be contested in the courts. A joint project is now under way between the Law Reform Commission and the Department to consolidate the Road Traffic Acts.

Other actions in the road safety strategy being led by the Department include the development of a strategy for the testing and deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles, and the preparation of regulations to limit the use of multiple learner permits by individuals to drive on our roads without passing a driving test. For this latter item, the regulations are nearly finalised. We are working with the RSA to agree an implementation plan to present to the Minister with the regulations for signing.

I thank the Chair for convening this session. I have outlined a number of actions that the Department is undertaking to improve road safety. I am happy to discuss these and any other matters of interest to the committee. I look forward to our engagement in this session.