Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Good morning all. I thank our witnesses for attending. As we know, the committee is prioritising road safety, particularly in response to a deeply worrying trend, namely the extent of fatalities and serious injuries last year and so far this year. At all times, this committee is very conscious that behind these statistics are families and communities that have been devastated. We are especially keen to focus on practical, outcome-driven measures around enforcement, legislative reform, operational capacity and the effectiveness of existing systems. The evidence we are about to hear will play a very important role in this, as will all the evidence heard by the committee to date and that which will be heard in the coming weeks.

We are very focused on producing a clear and actionable set of recommendations, and presenting those to Government and the various relevant agencies. I look forward to our engagement today.

On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to welcome from the Irish Road Victims Association, Ms Donna Price, who is its founder, president and public relations officer; Mr. David Mullins, solicitor and board member; and Mr. Tony Johnstone, board member. From Headway Ireland we have Mr. Richard Stables, information and support manager; and Ms Sonya Walsh, head of rehabilitation services and principal counselling and clinical neuropsychologist.

I have some notes on privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to that person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with this direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the House, or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I invite the witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order. First is Ms Donna Price from the Irish Road Victims Association and second is Mr. Richard Stables from Headway Ireland.

Ms Donna Price:

We are grateful for the opportunity to address the committee today. The Irish Road Victims Association is the national charity supporting those affected by road traffic collisions. We provide advocacy, guidance and direct support as individuals and families navigate the complex legal, medical and State systems that follow such events. All our services are provided free of charge offering a single, trusted point of contact for victims and bereaved families.

Our organisation is led by volunteers like myself - I lost my son, Darren, on the roads - Mr. Mullins, who lost his brother, Brian; Mr. Johnstone, who lost his son, Harry; and Stephen Doyle who lost his three brothers, Darren, Ryan and David. We have all experienced the loss of a loved one or serious injury on our roads. This lived experience informs our work and ensures that the realities faced by victims and families remain central to everything that we do. Through this work, we engage daily with families whose lives have been irreversibly altered by road traffic collisions. Last year alone, 190 people were killed on Irish roads and already this year 49 others have also lost their lives, with many more sustaining life-altering injuries. These are not inevitable events. In many cases, they are preventable. Our loved ones did not die from causes beyond our understanding. They died in circumstances we already know how to address. The question is no longer what to do but whether we will act with the urgency required to prevent further loss.

At IRVA, we are leading a co-ordinated, national response to road trauma, working across stakeholders to reduce harm and spare other families the devastation of such an avoidable loss. We call on the Oireachtas to translate that shared objective into decisive legislative and policy action. This must include the modernisation of the coroner system, with particular regard to strengthening structural independence and public confidence; the establishment of a structured, Government-led, post-incident investigation and family support framework; strengthened liaison services for bereaved families; enforceable statutory obligations in respect of road infrastructure; and robust speed control and penalty regimes designed to meaningfully influence driver behaviour and save lives. In particular, where collision data or engineering assessment identifies a known high-risk location, there should be a clear statutory obligation on the relevant authority to intervene within a defined timeframe, with appropriate oversight and consequences where such risks are not addressed. Where a risk is known, inaction should not be an option.

It is also essential that the inquest process operates in a manner that fully respects the rights of bereaved families. While inquests are inquisitorial in nature, they often represent the first meaningful opportunity for families to understand the circumstances of a death and to have relevant evidence examined in a public forum. In practice, however, families frequently lack the resources, legal expertise, and the information and support required to participate effectively in this process. This is particularly acute where issues of public safety, including road design, maintenance or other systemic factors, arise. Without appropriate information and support, there is a real risk that families are unable to effectively vindicate their rights or meaningfully engage with the process.

This is further compounded by the interaction between the timing of inquests and the statutory limitation periods for civil proceedings. In many cases, key findings or evidence emerge only after families’ practical ability to pursue civil remedies has been significantly constrained. Reform must, therefore, include enhanced legal aid and structured support for families engaging with the inquest process, together with measures to ensure that the timing of investigations and inquests does not inadvertently undermine access to justice or the ability to pursue civil accountability, where appropriate. For many families, engagement with the criminal justice system represents additional challenges. Delays in Garda investigations and in decisions by the Director of Public Prosecutions can be prolonged and difficult to understand. Families frequently experience limited visibility into decision-making processes and outcomes, which can contribute to uncertainty and even a perception of inconsistency.

There is also a need to ensure that the most appropriate offences are applied in road traffic cases. Where the evidence supports it, serious driving behaviour should be reflected in the consideration of dangerous driving offences, rather than lesser charges. Strengthening investigative standards, early evidence gathering, and alignment between Garda processes and prosecutorial decision-making are essential to improving outcomes and public confidence.

Time is critical. Delay carries a direct human cost. While action is deferred, lives continue to be lost and families continue to be affected. The evidence is clear, the causes are known and the opportunity to intervene exists. What is required now is timely, decisive action. For victims and bereaved families, the collision is not the end of the trauma. It is the beginning of a prolonged and often overwhelming journey. Alongside profound loss, families are drawn into complex investigative and legal processes for which they are neither prepared nor adequately supported. They face delays in investigations, inconsistency in outcomes and limited access to timely and meaningful information.

Too often, they remain on the periphery of processes that directly affect them. This lack of transparency and engagement compounds trauma and undermines confidence in the system. At the same time, dangerous behaviours continue to contribute to collisions, including excessive speed, distraction, impairment, fatigue, and unsafe infrastructure. Vulnerable road users remain disproportionately affected.

An effective national response must therefore be built on three clear and interdependent pillars. First, prevention. The protection of life requires consistent enforcement, safer infrastructure and proactive intervention where risks are identified. Second, accountability. Where deaths and serious injuries occur, the legal system must respond in a manner that reflects the gravity of the harm caused and reinforces deterrence. Third, support and access to justice. Where prevention fails, victims and families must be fully supported, with no structural or practical barriers to information, participation or legal redress. These principles must not remain aspirational. They must be delivered in practice through clear legislative frameworks, robust oversight and sustained commitment.

IRVA stands ready to act as a central partner in this work. Our direct engagement with victims and families provides real-time insight into where systems succeed and where they fail. To ensure these reforms are effective, it is essential that IRVA be supported to expand its capacity and be formally embedded within the policy and oversight structures shaping road safety and victim support at national level. We look forward to working constructively with this committee to deliver meaningful legislative and policy change, change that will save lives, ensure accountability, and properly support those affected.

Mr. Richard Stables:

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the committee today. I am the information and support manager with Headway Ireland. We are a national organisation providing community-based rehabilitation services to people living with an acquired brain injury. I would like to begin by acknowledging that road traffic accidents, as we have just heard, are a source of profound grief and trauma. Much of our national conversation quite rightly focuses on fatalities and the numbers of fatalities. However, I am here today to ask the committee to broaden that focus to include those who survive road collisions, but whose lives are permanently and devastatingly changed. While fatalities are immediate and visible, serious injuries, particularly injuries to the brain, typically unfold over years, often out of public view.

At Headway Ireland, approximately one fifth of our entire caseload arises directly from road traffic accidents. Behind that figure are people living with traumatic brain injury. These are people who may never return to work. They may lose their independence, their relationships and, in many cases, key aspects of their personalities. It is a complex consequence. Families often describe the experience to us not simply as survival, but as a different kind of loss. One family member told us at one point that, when things were particularly dark, "I sometimes think it would have been better if he hadn’t survived." Another in similar circumstances said, "There are worse things than death." These are difficult truths, but they are necessary ones if we are to fully understand the consequences of road traffic collisions.

We have a number of observations and suggestions. First, there is a strong case for expanding restorative justice programmes in road traffic offences, including the wider use of mandatory driver awareness programmes. This is a model we have used successfully with assault cases. We think it could be broadened in this circumstance. Where appropriate, these can play an important role in changing behaviour and helping drivers understand the lifelong consequences of their actions. Second, there are some emerging risks that require urgent attention. We are seeing increasing concern around e-scooter-related injuries. This is supported by research published in the Irish Medical Journal. Similarly, issues relating to scramblers and other e-vehicles, particularly around helmet use and regulation, need to be addressed as a matter of priority. Third, enforcement remains critical. Investment in dedicated roads policing units is essential, particularly in urban environments where we are beginning to see much more complex interactions between vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, including injuries occurring on pavements. Risk factors such as alcohol, drugs and mobile phone use still continue to be strongly associated with traumatic brain injury. We also note the positive impact of reduced speed limits, including 30 km/h zones, in lowering the severity of injuries when collisions occur. This is an important public health measure and should be supported.

Finally, and critically, road safety must include transport accessibility. Keeping people safe on the roads is not only about restricting dangerous behaviour. It is also about ensuring people have safe, viable choices. For individuals who can no longer drive due to disability or brain injury, the absence of accessible transport can lead to isolation or, in some cases, unsafe transport choices. We therefore welcome measures such as the extension of the free travel pass to those who lose the ability to drive. However, significant gaps remain. The long-standing absence of the mobility allowance, and the lack of a fully implemented replacement, continue to impact people with disabilities. Similarly, supports such as the motorised transport grant have not been adequately reinstated. Accessible taxi provision is another area of concern. While Ireland has strong regulations governing vehicle safety and design, there are no requirements in relation to minimum coverage, response times or geographic equity. This is particularly problematic in rural areas, where options are already limited. In short, accessibility is not separate from road safety. It is part of it.

We are aware that Ireland collects data on serious injuries following collision, and that is important. However, in our experience, the long-term reality of those injuries, particularly brain injury, is not yet fully reflected in how we understand or communicate road safety. A serious injury is not a moment in time. It is often the beginning of a lifelong condition. If we are to build a truly safe road system, we must move beyond counting incidents to understanding consequences. That means recognising not only the number of people who survive collisions, but how they live afterwards.

I would urge the committee to ensure that life-changing injuries, including brain injury, are brought from the margins of the conversation to the centre.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Stables. If any of the witnesses need to take a break at any stage, please indicate that to me and we can take a brief recess. I again thank Ms Price and Mr. Stables for their opening statements.

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all of the witnesses for coming in and making time to be with us this morning. To those who have lost loved ones or have had loved ones affected by the trauma of road injury, I extend my sympathies and my condolences. I also want to express my thanks to the witnesses for speaking up for those victims. It is a natural, human instinct to walk away from a tragedy that befalls a family and decide it is one's own tragedy, but to take it on as a civic service to prevent this happening again in the future is very laudable. I just wanted to put that on the record of the committee at the outset.

I will turn first to the submission from IRVA. I am struck by the comprehensiveness of what it presented to us but would like to learn more about what reforms it would like to see with regard to the Coroner Service. I refer specifically to the 1962 Act. What needs to be done there with regard to making that process more victim-centred and more responsive in terms of identifying not only what happened in the case of a loved one who lost his or her life but also, if there is a systematic issue that is increasing the propensity for road deaths, ensuring that can be addressed as well?

Mr. David Mullins:

The Coroners Act is from a different era and operates in a silo in its own right. We have demonstrated here today that victims who have lost family members are involuntary. It is not that anybody wants to become a member of the IRVA club; it is something that is put upon people. The complexities of the coroner system are real. It is non-adversarial and it is a process that puts us into the space of proving who, where, when and how someone has passed. The time gap after a death that is quite dramatic and impactful can be between six to 18 months under the Act. Having a timely inquest to identify how that person passed versus the consequential impact of why that person has passed is an issue. There is also the intrinsic matrix of whether there should be opportunities for having civil matters pursued in relation to the cause of death, especially where the driver is not at fault. People get tied up in a time warp of waiting for an inquest, which is inquisitory in relation to identifying how that person has passed. There seems to be no urgency to move in sync with the Statute of Limitations, which is two years, in having somebody's cause of death reflected. It is important for families to be able to have closure and awareness. We have the infrastructure of a coroner, who is in situ to undertake a function. We also have the investigatory aspect of the Garda and dealing with family members. Different people have different skill sets and abilities and in most cases will not have the ability, in terms of the investigatory aspect of it, to ensure that investigations are being conducted correctly. There is a need for reform to bring in a degree of pastoral care and a sympathetic aspect to ensure that gardaí and the coroner, perhaps in conjunction with IRVA, align all of the relevant stakeholders and ensure that people are given the opportunity to make sure that justice is assured and victims can be vindicated. It is at the mercy and discretion of the family as it stands. Families become the shepherds, the voices, the ears and the eyes of the victims, but in most cases, people do not have that capacity. There is a gap there and a need for reform. We need to bring in a more active, open, transparent and speedier system. We must have the right safeguards in place to ensure that people are not left realising after the fact that a certain matter should have been dealt with six or 12 months earlier. Sometimes, it can be 48 months before an inquest can actually be called, for whatever reason.

Then there are issues, when people start to dig into this, of gardaí being delayed because they could not identify a witness or find person X or of people being at the mercy or discretion of the local authority to provide infrastructural reports that should have been readily available. In these investigations, which will only be led by families, there is no obligation on any arm of government to ensure that there is an alignment between the relevant stakeholders who are given the authority to ensure there is joined-up thinking, that the dots are joined and things are dealt with in a timely fashion. Any secondary function in relation to identification or qualification of the cause of death, if somebody, some thing or some arm of government was responsible for it or someone was negligent, should be properly addressed but people should also be given the correct supports to ensure that they can actually engage, irrespective of their capacity or financial ability. There is nothing there. It is very limited and that is where we would see this being improved.

Ms Donna Price:

The coroner's inquest is really our public hearing into our loved ones' deaths. The inquest itself can be a very restricted hearing into the when, where and how a loved one was killed, with no real discussion of the circumstances surrounding that death. If one wants to have evidence introduced into the record, sometimes one is told that the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, has looked at this file and there is no need to go into that evidence at the inquest, so families are deprived of that information. As the Deputy knows, families are very much on the periphery of the investigation and the DPP's deliberations.

The notice given for these hearings can be very short. It might just be a couple of weeks. That is the only window that families have to look for information on the circumstances surrounding their loved ones' deaths. I refer, for instance, to copies of the Garda abstract report or the forensic collision investigation report. These are often denied to them and we feel that is wrong. Many years ago, former Deputy Alan Shatter, when he was Minister for justice, said that if he found that families were not getting that information, he would consider legislating for it. We might have to consider that because, otherwise, families cannot be empowered to participate in the inquest. They cannot take legal advice or opinion, so they are very much in the dark. When they go into these hearings, they can be retraumatised by what they are hearing there for the first time. Families need to be prepared and we do our best in IRVA to empower them to ask questions and seek information in advance of the hearing.

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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It seems to me that there are effectively two gaps here. One is that there is not a central, co-ordinating function when the coroner process starts. I am struck by what the witnesses said there about the reliance on other agencies to provide information. There is no stick, effectively, to demand that. The second issue is that there is no Sherpa. From the minute the incident occurs, be it a death or severe injury, there is not someone on the Garda or wider State side to guide families through the process. That falls to IRVA, it seems. There is no State agency doing it.

Ms Donna Price:

The Garda appoints a family liaison officer in every case.

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does that follow right through to the inquest?

Ms Donna Price:

Yes, it should do.

Mr. David Mullins:

Yes, the Garda inquest officer will be a trained officer who is independent and impartial in relation to the actual investigation itself. That officer would have no hand, act or part in relation to oversight of the investigation.

To some degree it is assumed they are kept quiet in order that it does not conflict with the investigative process, which is obviously independent. Impartiality is necessary, and I agree with it to a certain degree, but unfortunately, and it is of no disregard and not being disparaging in relation to any Garda officer, because it is a difficult job to do to undertake the task of becoming a Garda liaison officer, but it is whoever is standing and who has not been directly involved with the investigation, and that does not necessarily mean they have any training or ability. It is a very short window. There is a need for a network, structure and framework where people are properly trained and put into that process. There should be more formidable information brought forward to families, and they should not necessarily be kept in the shadow of the investigation. It needs to be more transparent. It is the lack of awareness and knowledge that people have that makes them unsure of the process. The more transparent these processes are, the less suspicion there is.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their statements and for being here today. This is a really important report we are doing and their perspective is incredibly valuable. I will start with Headway Ireland and the data on serious injuries. Will Mr. Stables talk about our system and how it works after a road traffic collision? Are there other countries that are doing the healthcare side of things, the emergency response, better than Ireland, and therefore minimising the impact of collisions?

Mr. Richard Stables:

I will do my best. I am not familiar with other jurisdictions. The RSA collects serious injury collision statistics on the basis of collisions which require or end up with a hospital stay as a consequence. These kinds of injuries, for example, crushed ribs and broken legs, are not mappable to the hospital system. A brain injury is not necessarily mapped to the hospital system. We are not able to see a priori from the RSA statistics, which are the scene-of-accident data collected, what the direct downstream health implications of that are. When someone gets into the hospital, the information is logged in the hospital inpatient inquiry system statistics. Those two systems do not really map to each other, so there is a piece of work that could be productively done to see how that could be improved so that the paramedic-gathered statistics from the scene of the road collision and the hospital inpatient inquiry system could be better joined up. Are other countries doing it? I do not actually know. I would be surprised if there is not a model somewhere for that.

Ms Sonya Walsh:

Typically, Australia is doing everything better than us. When it comes to brain injury, if you want a brain injury, you have it in Australia. In terms of models of brain injury management, they do all that better. However, one of the things for us in Headway is to not get stuck in that immediate place of how we save lives. Lives are being saved and we are doing better now. With the trauma network, more people are surviving. We need to think about what we do once people have survived. A person comes out of injury and is medically well and stable and is sent home. Some of our clients come to us who have not been given any follow-up and have just been sent home. We have had people come to us 20 years after injury with nobody having told them that they have an injury. There is a piece of work in terms of ongoing support and recognition of the fact that, if a person is in a significant car accident or is hit by a car, and if we consider that the brain is essentially a jelly floating inside a bowl of water, it is going to be bounced around and the inside of a skull is sharp, so inevitably, even with the best trauma management in the world, brain injury is going to happen. Our responsibility as a brain injury service support is to think how we give that person a meaningful quality of life after he or she has survived. It is really important that we do not get stuck in just surviving.

The other thing that is really important is that we are talking about fatalities and survivors as though they are separate categories. Very often in a car accident there is both. There are people who died and people who survived with brain injury and other significant injuries, and one family is trying to manage them. It is really important that we do not set ourselves up as though there are different categories of survivors. It is happening to the same people, and it is the same network absorbing it. Sometimes it is the same financial, employment and community systems absorbing all of the pain for that loss. It is important to acknowledge we are not here with different agendas; we have the same agenda.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ms Walsh is absolutely right. My question has come from a place of hearing about helicopter emergency services, where there is consultant-led care at the scene of a collision. I believe that is operating in Northern Ireland. I was wondering what the difference is between the North and South, if Ms Walsh is familiar with what happens, and the support services that are available for people when they have to completely change their lives after a road traffic collision?

Ms Sonya Walsh:

In terms of service provision here, my understanding - I do not know the system in the North - is that we are moving more towards consultant-led care. As the trauma network develops, the plan is to have the centre of excellence and bring people to the trauma centre as opposed to just being treated in local hospitals. That is the way things are shaping up, the way I understand it. In terms of managed care afterwards, it is a bit of a crapshoot. It depends on where you are, who you meet when you get into the hospital, who the treating physician is, what they know about brain injury, and what part of the country you are in. That is for every stage. It is for when you have your injury and in the acute stages. For example, the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire has a limited capacity, so somebody has to decide who gets in there. There are people all over the country who are not getting that centre of excellence care, and on the back end of it, once you are discharged from there, you can go back to the original hospital you went to and then you can be discharged from there with nothing. That depends on where you are.

If we think of our reach as an organisation, we are a national organisation in the sense that we will support the person as best we can, but we do not have services everywhere. We are not funded to have services everywhere. If you have a brain injury in Laois – I am from Laois - your chances of getting long-term rehabilitation support to sustain quality of life outcomes are significantly lower than if you have them in Dublin, where we have a bigger service. If you have a brain injury in Galway, good luck. There is a very small service provision there for that long-term rehabilitation, for social care and for quality of life outcomes. It is a lottery in terms of where you are and what you get, and that is at every single stage of the process.

With CNRTs which have just come on stream, there are efforts to make better outcomes, but it is not being prioritised. The nature of the support we provide is slow stream and long-term. We are with you for life because so is the injury, but that is not necessarily the medical model that is followed. The CNRTs are in place, but they are 12-session models. You get 12 sessions of psychology. I am a psychologist. In 12 sessions of psychology you can do almost nothing with somebody who has stepped into a new life. In terms of how we conceptualise what brain injury looks like after road traffic accidents, indeed all brain injuries, we have to think that it is with you for life. The services need to go with you for life.

Mr. Richard Stables:

They are being introduced as part of the neurorehabilitation strategy.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Stables for clarifying that.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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In my own intervention I want to focus on and link in with the Irish Road Victims Association in the context of the opening statement and the effective national response. I will focus on the first pillar of prevention, and I reflect on the evidence that we have heard today, the discussions we have had among members and my own views as well. On the enforcement, I am sure everyone in this room is shocked with the extent of non-compliance with existing road traffic legislation particularly over the Christmas period and a number of smaller operations that An Garda Síochána had since then. The strength of our roads policing unit is somewhere around 650, which is significantly less than what it was in 2009 when we had a fewer vehicles on the roads. Commitments were previously given by the Commissioner, I think in May 2024, to strengthen the roads policing unit by 150. I believe that only 75 of those appointments were made. That was confirmed by the assistant commissioner last October.

I also want to mention other areas such as data capture. Deputy Currie in particular has been highlighting that. It is really shocking that disqualifications and court-issued penalty points are not being recorded. I acknowledge Deputy's work on this. There is also the learner permit fiasco. We have been talking about learner permit reform. Commitments were given by the RSA as far back as 2013 and 2014. The point was made about infrastructure, which we had been discussing a lot even down to low-cost safety improvement schemes delivered by local authorities. Unfortunately, we are just not providing enough funding to address and satisfy all those requests from local authorities.

I will come to the issue of the RSA and this fragmented approach to road safety. Who is in charge? Is it the RSA, An Garda Síochána, the local authorities, the government Department of Transport or other NGOs? Do the witnesses have confidence in the RSA? Witness after witness have come in to this committee and expressed no confidence in the authority. I just wanted to ask and maybe put witnesses on the spot. Have they confidence in the authority and do they have a view, notwithstanding what I have just highlighted in terms of enforcement, infrastructure and data capture? There is also an urgent need for consolidation of road traffic legislation. I could go on but perhaps the witnesses will address that fragmented approach. Who is in charge? Given the Indecon report and the recommendations therein, and the subsequent view taken by this current Government to set aside the recommendations, what are the witnesses' views on the RSA?

Ms Donna Price:

As somebody who has served on the board of the RSA for six years, I certainly have confidence in the staff within the organisation. They have a very good team of staff there. The difficulty was that authority has responsibility but little control because we have a government road safety strategy, so it is a whole-of-government strategy, and the RSA is reliant on the other actors or parties to that strategy in order to fulfil the different aspects of the strategy. Ultimately, the Department has full control. If the RSA is restricted, for instance, from employing staff then it falls to the Department. It is unfair to tarnish the RSA staff when they do not have the power that they need and finance to back them, which they need to fulfil what I would see as their remit. I hope I am making myself clear.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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The Indecon report made recommendations on the separation of the Road Safety Authority and the significant licensing responsibilities and other responsibilities they have. Does Ms Price have a view on the recommendations of the Indecon report? Does she think the Government should implement the recommendations of the Indecon report?

Ms Donna Price:

The Indecon report recommended that the RSA should be split into two separate entities. I am not sure I was in favour of that because I felt it was really a cosmetic exercise. There would still be the same staff and the agencies would still be reliant on the Department to support the various activities of each. I am not sure how much I should be saying in public but when I was serving on the board I felt a lot of the time was spent on procurement and the business and element duties of the Road Safety Authority, to the detriment of analysing road deaths and serious injuries to see how we can prevent them. We have seen that the RSA reports no longer really exist. We used to have a report every year on the number of fatalities and the various causes of them but we have not had that for a number of years. The data as well is not being shared with the local authorities.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Cycling Ireland and others have raised the idea of a road safety commissioner with statutory powers and with a small team. I have also discussed this with Deputy O'Hara. I come back to that fragmented approach and who is in charge. Are there any thoughts on the establishment of a road safety commissioner?

Ms Donna Price:

Absolutely. That would be wonderful.

Mr. Tony Johnstone:

We have been discussing this, and perhaps even going so far as having a Minister with sole responsibility for road safety. Somebody needs to really be leading that charge, whatever their role is going to be. As we say all along, prevention is number one and then the enforcement has to be there as well. For example, there are simple things when it comes to prevention. We hear wonderful ideas and plans such as the 50 km/h coming down to 30 km/h. This has been pushed out significantly and is being put back into the hands of the local authorities to now implement this. It is now pushed out to March of next year. It should have been implemented by the end of last year. How many lives have been lost on the roads by this not being implemented when it should have been? The approach that should have taken place was a blanket 30 km/h. This should have been put in place as originally planned and then leave it to the individual councils and authorities to then do their reviews. If there were roads that warranted increasing back to 40 km/h or 50 km/h, that should have been done. My point really is that prevention and safety is saving lives and it should be the number one priority.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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What is the biggest failure? Is it enforcement, is it the legislative side, is it that lack of system co-ordination or is it something else?

Mr. Tony Johnstone:

It is a mix of everything. The first thing is prevention. We hear of wonderful plans and we have the vision of zero targets and we talked about bringing deaths down to 72 or 74 per year by 2030. We had 190 deaths last year on Irish roads, which was the highest in a decade. We are currently at the same measure for the same point of this year. We are not seeing or hearing anyone from the Government or anyone with any real sense of urgency to turn anything around on this. There are things such as speed reductions and there are such things as the red light cameras with AI capabilities that can prevent a lot of the actual causes. There needs to be investment for the enforcement . As previously mentioned, the number of personnel allocated for roads policing is down significantly. That needs to be increased. With more cars on the road, we have more deaths on the road, yet we have fewer policing it.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Nugent. We will move on.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all of the witnesses for their time. It is a very important issue and a very important area of focus for this committee particularly given the high numbers of people losing their lives on the roads. In her opening statement, Ms Price mentioned the association's call for the IRVA to be formally embedded within the policy and oversight structures that shape road safety policy as well as victim support. Will she expand on that and outline what is the association's current level of engagement with the RSA and with the Department? I ask the same question of Headway Ireland.

Ms Donna Price:

We work with all road safety stakeholders. I spent six years, two terms, on the board of the RSA. Following that I was appointed to the road user safety forum where we have been working on phase two of the government road safety strategy. That is where our input lies. We meet regularly with the assistant commissioner in An Garda Síochána, the Road Safety Authority and the Minister to discuss issues of concern to us.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Is Ms Price satisfied with the level of engagement through that structure?

Ms Donna Price:

We could have more involvement, certainly. As Mr. Johnstone alluded to, we have a Minister of State with responsibility for road safety but his role has really expanded and road safety is only a small element of his role. We feel road safety is not being treated with the urgency it should be. That is a frustration of ours. Every day we deliberate we are hearing of further deaths and serious injury on the roads. We feel that more can and must be done with that real sense of urgency.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I pose the same question to Ms Walsh and Mr. Stables.

Mr. Richard Stables:

From our point of view, our role will probably focus on one of the other Es. We have enforcement and engineering but we also have education. That would be something where we could contribute more formally to the scenario. One of the strengths, ironically, of the RSA is its public campaigns are generally well designed. However, they tend to focus on some of the more dramatic, short-term incidents rather than the longer term consequences. Some involvement in that from our perspective and an education point of view would be helpful. It is worth noting that education sessions being run around the country have been taken up by the private sector more than the State system. AXA, the insurance company, has been doing a series of road shows over the years for adolescents who recently qualified as drivers. AXA designed a very hard-hitting road show experience which we often participate in. However, the fact AXA sees that as a useful investment from its perspective in what is effectively their business model seems to show there is a gap the State could be usefully filling. It is not just down to insurance companies to remind people to drive more carefully; it is something we should all be campaigning for. Our main business is dealing with people after they have been injured, but in the education sense, we have a role to play.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Does the IRVA do outreach and education sessions in schools, for example?

Mr. Richard Stables:

We do a limited amount because our resources are funded for the delivery of services. We do what we can. We have, in a very targeted way and parallel to assault-related injury, had a restorative-justice approach using very focused, targeted interventions to specific people who have been convicted of certain offences. We then do focused education with them. That is something we could usefully bring and scale up to road traffic offences.

Ms Sonya Walsh:

I will add that we are willing but we are under-resourced. It is not the case that we do not want to have an advocacy or policy remit, but we are a service provider. Funding-wise, 98% of what we receive goes to direct service provision. However, we are experts and we have lots of experts in our service who would love to tell the powers that be about their experience, what could be done differently and how they might need support. If that is to be done, we need more money. It is pretty straightforward in that sense.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I hear Ms Walsh loud and clear. My final question relates to something Ms Price said earlier about structured post-incident investigation. Could Ms Price expand on that and say whether she has a specific idea in mind on what that should look like if there is any comparisons in other countries?

Ms Donna Price:

For us, information for the circumstances surrounding our loved one's death is really so important. We are looking for thorough investigations in every case. We are in a situation where we ask ourselves how we know if a thorough investigation has taken place. Because the families are very much held on the periphery, we do not know what evidence has been compiled or what the causes of the crash may have been until several years down the road. That is very difficult for families to live with. There are sleepless nights wondering what could have caused their loved one's death.

Thorough investigations is the first thing. We have to have some sort of oversight and consistency in the quality of investigations so it is not left to the calibre of a individual investigating officer because a lot lies with whether you have a good investigating officer or not. Sometimes it might be somebody who is about to retire. I do not want to cast any aspersions on An Garda Síochána but we do not have any oversight of the Garda investigation at all. I was quite surprised to find that a poor investigation does not fall within the remit of the Garda ombudsman. The DPP does not have any oversight role either. It can be quite late in the day for families to be aware of what the circumstances were and, as I mentioned earlier, for them to be able to take expert advice or opinion before they go into the inquest.

At the end of the day, for us, what is really important is that we have robust legislation and that we have effective deterrents and rigorous enforcement of the law. We can spend so much money on education and everything but, unless we have that highly visible Garda presence on the roads, people will continue to take chances with their own lives and with other's lives, and they do not care. There is a cohort of drivers out there who simply do not care and the only way to get through to them if for them to receive the appropriate penalty so there is a real likelihood they will lose their licence. In that regard, I commend our previous TD, Shane Ross, who changed the legislation for drink-driving because that really changed things for the first time. If someone was caught and failed a breathalyzer and intoxilyzer, they would lose their licence. That was a game-changer because someone who might have been prepared to pay the fine and continue to drink and drive was now going to lose their licence and suddenly would not take the chance because it might mean losing their livelihoods.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I am sorry I missed the opening statements but I read them before I came in. As Deputy Murphy said, we have had lots of different witnesses coming in and talking about the RSA. The name says it: the Road Safety Authority. One would imagine it is an authority on road safety. I am not sure. Like Ms Price, I am not saying anything about the staff, it is the actual role.

Having listened to her, I would love to hear more about the Australian model. She was talking about the services for survivors of a road collision and people living with brain injury. Twenty-eight years ago I worked as a community worker with the Irish Wheelchair Association. A young man was in a day centre with us. Most people were elderly wheelchair users. He had a brain injury and just had nowhere else to go. It is so disappointing to hear that level of service is still not provided. He needed social care, rehabilitation and psychological care but there was nothing for him. He had to come in and sit in a day centre three days a week for two hours with people who were double his age. He was in a motorbike accident. It is very disappointing to hear that. If there was a commissioner, would that ensure there is going to be a cross-departmental approach where education, social care, health, transport is going to be taken into it? Listening to witnesses coming in, the RSA seems to be overburdened with work and, perhaps, the Indecon report shows there needs to be a split between licensing and other parts of road safety.

I am wondering about the other models the witnesses might have heard of. If there is an authority whose remit is to be an authority on road safety, who feeds into that? What Departments or organisations feed into that?

Ms Sonya Walsh:

As a service provider, the case referred to by the Senator is sadly still very common and will continue to be common until services are fully funded. The model of injury management is still a very medical one, so it is a case of "Get people well, get them moving, get them home and then carry on with your life because the families will take care of it". Informal carers are carrying the burden of managing people in their homes and communities. That burden should not lie with them. It is ruining children's lives and the lives of mams and dads who should not still be providing care in their 90s to their 50-year-old son who had an injury 30 years ago. Those things should not be happening but will continue until brain injury specifically is acknowledged as a long-term condition that needs long-term support, including neuro-developmental treatment, NDT. We have fusion neuro and teams in place but they are short-term services. It is services like our service that are there for the long haul that need NDT provision within them. That is the model that will ultimately work.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Is Headway funded by the Department of Health?

Ms Sonya Walsh:

Technically, we are a charity but 98% of our funding comes through the Department of Health. I am not speaking to road safety on that point.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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The witnesses spoke about an Australian model for brain injury. Does that take into account the consequences of the accident and information that has been shared or is it separate? Does it involve any brain injury regardless of road safety?

Ms Sonya Walsh:

It is more to do with generic brain injury. It is just managed better.

Mr. Richard Stables:

We are seeing the beginnings of more joined-up thinking on how we plan and strategise for the provision of service after the fact. The national trauma strategy has really taken the problem of how to deal with the immediate impact of this in the best possible way for the best possible outcomes. It made reference to the glaring gap in the longer term rehabilitation picture in Ireland. The strategy has taken a lead on that.

In terms of how we get the prevention piece bolted on to the front of that, that is where possibly the Senator's idea of a commissioner would help to deliver a cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary approach because that is clearly what is absent.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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What would an ideal model look like?

Mr. David Mullins:

Regarding a transparent engagement on my part, as a novice, in never having experienced a road traffic accident, I thought of the RSA. I had never heard of the Irish Road Victims Association. It was a secondary accidental intervention that led to my identifying it. I would have thought of the RSA as a platform that one goes to that would have the statistics and information relating to fatalities. In the case of my brother, it was a single-vehicle car crash. I was interested to see whether there were other accidents at the locus and the history but that information was not available, other than through anecdotal evidence from local people who were aware. That was then shoehorned into a platform where the Garda PULSE system would have had a historical record. There are two parties with regard to national infrastructure - TII and the local authority - and they have different functions. Again, part of the investigatory aspect is who is responsible and who is aware with regard to the first pillar concerning prevention. If this data is not pulled together, people do not know where to start and what to know. The RSA should have that. Perhaps a commissioner would have the authority to be able to pool that information and assure that the investigative aspect of identifying will prevent. In my case, the locus to which I referred had multiple accidents historically but nobody was aware because people in certain roles moved on or were promoted. There is no oracle of history collated. I would have thought that the RSA should be the seat to hold that data. There is a lack of transparency. The RSA should have the autonomy and power to pull that information together. It should have a firm hand to be able to act when someone has not taken on the responsibility. In this case, there were multiple accidents and nobody was aware of that information when it was brought together at an intrinsic investigative level. The RSA should have that autonomy and responsibility but I do not think those exist.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We are all focusing on the disparate nature of the structures around road safety. Who is currently accountable for the delivery of the Vision Zero strategy?

Mr. Tony Johnstone:

I could not tell the Deputy who I think is taking accountability, to be honest. I think we will be talking about a commissioner or somebody else being put into this role. It cannot just be another name check where the public and affected families do not see any action. If it is a commissioner, he or she should have oversight in all areas, the first of which should be the education side. A lot is done through the RSA so it should have oversight of that aspect. When we look at prevention, the commissioner should liaise with councils, government and so on. There are then other safety aspects such as speed, drink, drugs, etc., and putting that side of things in place. Regarding enforcement, the commissioner should also tie in with An Garda Síochána, the Garda Commissioner and enforcement and in terms of increasing the numbers of gardaí in road policing.

Another area where there are issues for families is accountability. There are many situations where death or serious injury is caused and no charges are brought. There are situations where somebody is charged with a lower offence as opposed to dangerous driving causing death, for example. Somebody can be charged initially and then the Director of Public Prosecutions accepts a plea to a lesser charge. All of this diminishes things for the families. All families need and want is to know what happened and how it happened. They want to see somebody held accountable, even if that is just a case of a person being brought through the legal process where he or she must stand before a court for the offence committed. Unfortunately, there seems to be a time-saving aspect where, rather than going through a trial if the person does not plead guilty, a plea to a lesser charge is accepted to speed things up. That causes more devastation for the families. If there is to be a commissioner, he or she needs to look at all aspects, the first being how serious injuries or deaths on the road were caused and the second being the impact of that on families. The commissioner should also liaise with the Irish Road Victims Association, Headway and various other stakeholders.

Ms Donna Price:

In the eyes of the public, everybody thinks it is the Road Safety Authority that has control of the implementation of the strategy. As I alluded to previously, as far as I can see, the RSA had responsibility but did not have control. I now understand that this has changed and it now falls to the Department of Transport to oversee the implementation of the strategy.

The introduction of a road safety commissioner would have merit because responsibility for road safety falls across several Departments. The Department of justice, for instance, covers the likes of enforcement and investigations. The Department of Health covers the likes of brain injuries and hospital beds. I always remember being at one of the RSA's conferences for victims when one of the doctors from the National Rehabilitation Hospital told everybody that there were 30 beds for brain-injured patients throughout the country at a time when 300 were needed. I know that a new building has been built, meaning there are additional beds, but I am quite sure we are nowhere near the 300 required to facilitate all the brain-injured people. For that reason and because road safety seems to fall between the three stools of the various Departments, a road safety commissioner would have merit. As a result, nobody is taking it seriously. We do not sense any urgency in trying to implement what needs to be implemented.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Are there any similar roles Ms Price believes the commissioner role could be modelled on? We have various ombudsman roles, for example.

Ms Donna Price:

I do not have expertise in that area. Maybe Mr. Mullins does.

Mr. David Mullins:

The structure of the Office of the Information Commissioner would be a platform to start with, pulling in the various stakeholders, acting as a white knight and ensuring autonomy and independence in respect of each relevant stakeholder. It is a case of joined-up thinking, bringing people to the table with a united front and having a white knight in the role. It is not related to where we need to be, but the model and infrastructure are quite good.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I apologise for missing the earlier session.

I am hearing there are cross-departmental responsibilities that include the RSA but that no one is actually co-ordinating in this regard. There is no one pulling this all together and making sure the RSA, the Department of Transport, the Department of Health and the Department of justice are actually working collaboratively. How do the witnesses envisage the roles being pulled together? Is there a need for one person pulling all of it together to make sure there is collaboration to really address all of the issues?

Mr. David Mullins:

As in any hierarchy or organisation that works quite well, be it a beehive or any arm of government, everyone has their functions and duties. There needs to be one chief whip, with joined-up thinking on a collaborative basis, but also a degree of independence. Money talks, and if an organisation is going to get a penalty it will pull up its socks. Everyone needs checks and balances, including ourselves, as does any organisation that has been delegated a task.

All stakeholders should be brought to the table and there should be ongoing compliance in that regard, in addition to a structure that can be delivered and that people can follow. Second, there has to be a degree of authority and a penalty for those that are not delivering or adhering to key performance indicators, and also if there are no targets and no awareness. At the moment, we are operating on a wing and a prayer. We are operating on discretion and on the basis of the diligence of individual forensic collision incident investigators. We are also operating on the basis of the diligence of aftercare health service providers, the charity of the Irish Road Victims Association and people's assumption that the RSA is available. There are many assumptions, but until you walk in the shoes of those who have gone through the process, you do not fully find things out. You do need somebody to enforce accountability. If all of the stakeholders are aware of that and if there are audits and checks and balances with the regulator, things will work and people will be made accountable.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It has to be part of our recommendation that there needs to be someone co-ordinating the efforts across the Department of Transport, the RSA, the Department of justice and the Department of Health, and that there need to be penalties for not meeting the targets set.

On head injuries, it was mentioned that there were 30 beds and a demand for 300. Do we actually have any statistics on the number of head injuries that result from road traffic accidents?

Ms Donna Price:

That is more for Headway.

Mr. Richard Stables:

I will try to come in on that. The short answer is that there are no statistics.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Again, that is a gap.

Mr. Richard Stables:

Yes, it is a fact in itself that is worth noting.

Our own estimates are based on European comparisons. The general European level of head injury would be about 260 per 10,000 of population. If that were reflected in the Irish population, we would expect to see about 14,000 traumatic brain injuries each year. The proportion of that which arises from traffic accidents is very difficult to map. We are aware that there are different trends now. For example, falls are now the biggest single cause of trauma, whereas it used to be road traffic accidents. The RSA shows that there are about 1,500 serious road collisions, and we can infer from this that virtually all of them would have a head injury component. The figure could be anywhere between that and a large proportion of the 14,000 injuries we surmise are occurring.

On Ms Price's point on the lovely new building at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, the hospital now has a grand total of 46 beds for brain injury, which hardly represents a big dent in the need. I am sure it will be echoing this concern. We are aware that it is a significant problem. From our perspective as a service provider, we are never short of business.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Unfortunately.

Are there any international models that we could look to for inspiration to modernise the coroner system?

Mr. David Mullins:

I am not aware of any. I have not dug deep into it or looked to other jurisdictions. However, there are issues with the timeframes associated with how the coroner system operates. There are inconsistencies in whether a jury is called at the discretion of the coroner, for whatever local reasons exist.

Families are forced into the inquisitory aspects of inquests, not through choice but by design. Families' different socio-economic backgrounds result in different financial capacities. There is a discretionary element in providing legal aid to families. Nobody is prepared to spend somewhere between €7,000 and €14,000 to have counsel represent them in what is ultimately a judicial process, albeit inquisitory. These are grieving families who are not of the mindset to participate in the process, yet they have no choice. Therefore, there should be automatic discretion to make funding available. Providing evidence to families in a timely fashion should be mandatory, and there should be consequences if it is not. That would ensure people have an ability to disseminate the information and to be prepared and aware in advance of participating in the inquest process.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I know the IRVA mentioned it in its opening submission, but does it have a more detailed set of recommendations we could look at?

Mr. David Mullins:

I can provide them if the Deputy would like. I am happy to do so.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That would be helpful.

Ms Donna Price:

Sometimes the quality of the coroner's inquest can differ depending on where the death occurred. For instance, in Kildare we had a very good coroner, Professor Cusack. In Dublin city it is a very good coroner process as well. I attended one of those inquests in order to prepare myself, if I could, for the inquest into my son's death. To then attend an inquest in Westmeath, it was very archaic compared with what I had experienced in Dublin. It is important that there is consistency in the standards applied in each of the areas.

Mr. David Mullins:

I agree. Although the coroner's court is non-adversarial and it is not a case of abating or apportioning liability, it is not just about who, where, when and how they died; there is a cause of death, be it another driver or road infrastructure. There is a very archaic process where we cannot have accountability in this platform. That needs a major revamp in the powers of the coroner to step outside that very closed domain. It is not a case of using it as a platform to pursue civil matters, it is calling it out that the individual was killed either of their own fault, the fault of another driver or the fault of infrastructure. Let it be said. That is what people want and need.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is important.

Mr. David Mullins:

That is part of closure and part of the grief process.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is part of closure but also part of addressing the issues if it was a third party or infrastructure.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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The discretionary nature of where you are based is fundamentally wrong from the coroner's and legal point of view and for the aftercare service. That is why there needs be one oversight body responsible for it. It comes back to the point about the Love 30 campaign. I am a big advocate of it. Do the witnesses see the impact? It should never have been given to local authorities. It should have been this is what it is and that it is it. We can see the rowing back of that now. I presume there will be evidence now if some local authorities have adopted it and others have not, there will be a difference in whatever part of the country you live in. I do not think those voices are being listened to enough. Speed has such an impact on the level of injury. It is a regressive step that the campaign has been given back to the local authorities.

Mr. David Mullins:

In most cases, depending on the nature of the accident, the coroner's verdict will be accidental death of some sort, be it by the driver, another driver or infrastructure. There should be more of an emphasis for a narrative to be delivered because the proof is in the pudding. I would not put it down to any individual coroner; I would put it down to the nature of the lack of causation and lack of liability but people are not looking for blame - they are looking for a determination with a proper narrative.

Ms Donna Price:

Another point is on effective deterrents which are within the remit of this committee and the Department of Transport. For years, we have been looking for effective penalties for speeding. At the moment, it is the same penalty whether you are 1 km or 100 km over the limit. That is just not right. Over the years, we have not seen any will in the Department to change that. We are wondering how long we have to wait for that to happen because people are killed daily by speeding drivers. It is important to have effective penalties. At the moment if someone is caught I think it is three penalty points but someone has to be caught four times to lose their licence. There is little likelihood of that because of the reduced number of gardaí - they cannot be everywhere - and people continue to break the law and endanger others with no recourse, really.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Before we conclude I will give Ms Price and Mr. Stables time for perhaps three recommendations they would like this committee to take on board.

Ms Donna Price:

For the Department of Transport and the committee, it is key to have robust legislation first of all and effective deterrents - speeding would come within that and mobile phone use. At the moment, I think our legislation refers to a handheld phone but really it does not matter. It is the same level of distraction whether somebody is using a hands-free kit or holding it. It is a cop-out to have reference to a handheld phone in the legislation. That is legislative reform.

We also need average speed cameras. The Garda cannot be everywhere. I do not believe the GoSafe vans are effective for the simple reason that people seem, they are aware of where they are and they slow down but immediately speed up afterwards. That needs to be remedied in some way. There is nothing like having garda visibility out on the road. I wonder what we have to do ensure the level of enforcement we need. I have never been tested.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I have never been stopped.

Ms Donna Price:

What does that tell you about the level of enforcement? Yet I see the numbers and gardaí are apprehending these people for continuing to drink and drive, use their phones and speed.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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It is shocking.

Ms Donna Price:

I wonder what we have to do to support the Garda and make sure it is funded to have that level of enforcement continuously because that is what we need if we are serious about trying to reduce the number of deaths and injuries. It should not take a highly visible crash, like five young people losing their lives, in the news for people to take action. That is what is happening the moment. There is a reactive response - the last time it was to reduce speed limits by 20 km/h on the main arteries and in urban areas but all we have seen is a reduction on the L roads which are very much the backboards of the country. As we know, most collisions occur on regional roads and most of them in rural areas. That has not been tackled yet.

Mr. Richard Stables:

Our principal interest is in raising awareness. The public awareness campaign has begun to focus on and reflect the long-term impact of non-fatal collisions. It is about incorporating those long-terms outcomes into road safety messaging as it generally informs policy but that also involves the lived experience of people with brain injury who survive these things. On enforcement, I totally agree with everything Ms Price said. We need roads policing units but we see an emerging need very much for the urban environment because there is a sharp uptick in e-scooter injuries. We are not seeing gardaí on the city streets calling people out riding e-scooters on pavements at high speeds. This is an everyday occurrence. We are concerned this will become an even bigger issue.

Mobile phone use and drug and alcohol impairment are constantly in the background of causes. I do not know whether that is a dedicated commissioner who can create this cross-party or cross-departmental approach, but we need that to happen.

The final thing is that it is really important to keep an eye on people having access to safe transport choices. That means bearing in mind the accessibility of transport, particularly for people in rural areas. Those would be our main asks.

Ms Donna Price:

We have seen the banning of scramblers recently, which was the action the Department took, despite scramblers being responsible for very few deaths on the roads. On that note, I want to mention the involvement of HGVs and larger commercial vehicles in fatal collisions and in people being injured on the roads. Recently, we saw the Department allowing a derogation on the driving hours, despite fatigue being one of the main killers. I find that hard to accept. The regulations are there for the safety of drivers and other road users and here we are allowing them to drive for longer and take fewer rest periods. That has to result in further death and injury, which is really unforgivable. I just wanted to say that and to put it on the record.

Ms Sonya Walsh:

It is really important that we do not forget the families. Obviously, we have got family representation here today. In terms of any prevention or ongoing consultation around it, some of the most powerful testimonies I have heard about how injury impacts people has come from family members, despite the fact that the majority of my work is with people with brain injuries. The acknowledgment of the broader impact is really important, and the acknowledgement of the wisdom and learning that sits within that community. It is available to the committee to learn from that and it needs to be involved.

Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses very much. It is time for me to bring today's session to a conclusion. We have covered so much, in particular on the preventative side, which was the first pillar of the submission, around enforcement, education and awareness. I mentioned data systems and how we capture data. Infrastructure is another issue. Many of us highlighted concerns around the fragmented approach and who is in charge. We had some good suggestions and conversations around that. We also focused on the second and third pillars - issues such as accountability, support and access to justice. We got really good information around the coroner. I was not fully up to speed on that, so it was really beneficial for me and other members of the committee.

I thank Headway for the work it does, but also for bringing a focus on survivors who have lasting and devastating injuries. It was really good that we had that focus today. We also acknowledge the association, the families, their lost loved ones, and those in the Public Gallery as well. They are at the heart of what we are trying to do here, which is to take all this information on board and come up with a clear actionable report that we can present to the Government with short- to medium-term recommendations that could be actioned. I thank the witnesses for their evidence today, for their engagement and their advocacy. I again give a special mention to their loved ones.

I also thank members for their continued interest. We have a number of other key witnesses left to hear from - the Garda Commissioner, the assistant commissioner, the Road Safety Authority and the Minister as well. Today's engagement has been very useful. I thank the witnesses for taking the time to come to Leinster House today. I acknowledge those in the Public Gallery as well. I also thank the clerk and the team as well for their support.