Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I agree with the Deputy that it is extremely important that safety standards and specifications should, at all times, be a priority in the design, construction and maintenance of roads. A disagreement arises — if one wishes to call it that — in asking the Road Safety Authority to fulfil that role. I am satisfied with the role played by the authority, as well as by local authorities and council engineering staff. I do not want to comment on a specific case, but the Health and Safety Authority has been involved, even though it is probably acting ultra vires. An amount of work is being done on road safety, including road design. Arising from the HSA's interventions, new guidelines are being put in place. Other issues will arise from the road safety strategy, including that of soft engineering. The Garda Síochána now has a forensic unit and every accident location is treated as a crime scene. The information is fed into the system since it is important to have access to information on a combination of all these aspects. At this point, I would not like to distract the Road Safety Authority from its important job, otherwise it may have to acquire a range of skills it may not have, but I will keep the matter under review.

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