Ms Moyagh Murdock:

I thank the Chairman and the committee members for this opportunity to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts and assist in the examination of the Road Safety Authority's cash balances as highlighted in chapter 14 of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for 2012.

I have been CEO at the Road Safety Authority for almost four months. With me today is Mr. Pearse White, head of finance at the authority. The RSA has achieved much in its relatively short lifetime. I have seen road deaths fall from 335 in 2003 to 190 in 2013. Aside from avoiding the loss and trauma suffered by families and society, reducing serious road collisions has a significant financial benefit. A recent evaluation of the first road safety strategy from 2007 to 2012, which was commissioned by the Government, notes that the impact of the strategy equates to stopping around 686 fatal collisions, 1,300 serious injury collisions and 650 minor collisions. This amounts to a monetary saving for the Exchequer and society of around €1.85 billion. The evaluation was conducted by the RPS Group using financial calculations set out by A&L Goodbody.

In the ten year period from 2003 to 2013 road fatalities have fallen by 43%. In the same period injuries have fallen by 16%. I have included a detailed report on the financial history of the RSA as part of this submission, including revenue and expenditure as set out by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The report outlines how the Road Safety Authority has utilised revenue and cash reserves in the first road safety strategy and how it has reduced dependency on Exchequer funding in recent years. This occurred against a backdrop of assuming additional statutory functions, as outlined by the Secretary General. The key statutory functions we adopted are the transfer of commercial vehicle roadworthiness testing from local authorities, implementation of the new driver licence service, responsibility for the approved driving instruction regulation, and regulation and provision of certificate of professional competence, CPC, training for bus and truck drivers. The authority also assumed responsibility under the carriage of dangerous goods regulation some years ago. All of the additional functions were assigned to the authority in accordance with statute and following detailed discussions with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport on funding and resources. The additional statutory functions were assigned on condition that the authority would fund them from its own resources.

On behalf of the RSA I thank the committee members as elected representatives and all of their colleagues in the Oireachtas for the encouragement and support we continue to receive as we implement these projects. There was cross-party support for all of these areas and the two major projects in 2013 were the commercial vehicle roadworthiness test, CVRT, and the national driver licence service, NDLS. These were significant developments and there were hiccups along the way. However, I am happy to report that we are in a better position and further improvements will be delivered in the coming months.

As outlined in the submission, the Road Safety Authority has been funded through a combination of Exchequer and non-Exchequer funding. The Exchequer allocation for 2014 is approximately €3.37 million, and this represents 5% of projected income for the year.

The remaining 95% emanates from revenues generated by those services such as driver testing, licensing, commercial vehicle testing and national car testing. Both the Department and the authority expect us to be fully self-funding by 2015. It is in that context that the authority and the Department see it as appropriate that reserves are in place to ensure we are on a secure financial footing in the medium term. In any organisation it is considered good financial management to manage affairs prudently, provide for unforeseen expenditure, and have adequate liquidity on hand to cover short to medium-term cashflow demands.

The reserves held by the authority are essential in allowing us to implement the initiatives set out in the Government’s current Road Safety Strategy 2013-2020. They allow us to withstand unpredictable costs which may be incurred during early stages of some the major change projects, for instance, the commercial vehicle roadworthiness testing, CVRT, and the driver licence service.

The latter part of the detailed submission deals with the recommendation set out in the audit report of 2012. This has been adopted and I, as chief executive officer of the authority, meet the road safety division of the Department on the last Tuesday of every month to present our latest achievements, our key performance indicators, KPIs, and our road safety issues and future plans. This monthly meeting is used to update the Department on the authority’s performance in respect of each of the service delivery requirements contained within our service level agreement. Later this year I hope to have a full formal review with the Department on our overall performance.

I believe the Comptroller and Auditor General report on cash balances in the RSA demonstrates that the authority has exercised prudence and good financial management in the course of its operation in terms of its reserves. I also believe that the Road Safety Authority has continued to make very significant and demonstrable progress in improving road safety in Ireland through effective use of these reserves and also previous Exchequer funding. In the most recent rankings published, Ireland was sixth in Europe in terms of road safety, and this is in no short measure down to the continued investment in reform programmes, driver education, promotion, training and testing, enforcement and engineering.

Unfortunately, in 2013 we had 190 deaths on our roads. That is an increase of 28 on 2012 and demonstrates that there remains considerable scope for further achievements. So far in 2014 we are on the same level of fatalities as we were this time in 2013 in that 84 lives were lost on our roads, the most recent being a motorcyclist losing his life on the road last night.

The successes of the past indicate that further progress can be made provided effective policies and strategies are put in place and are resourced and funded appropriately into the future. The RSA has dealt with the complex legacy issues we inherited with many of the public services now under the authority’s remit at no additional cost to the Exchequer, and I am confident we will continue to do so into the future.