Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To update Deputy Wallace, the current state of play is that the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, has asked the Road Safety Authority and my Department to write to him with our views on the report that has been published and also our suggestions as to how the penalty points system can be made more robust. That letter has since issued to the Minister, Deputy Shatter, and we are in the process of arranging a meeting involving him and his officials, me and my officials, and the RSA to make further progress on the matter.

On Deputy O'Donovan's question, the new strategy published a few weeks ago does not deal only with road deaths. It now, for the first time, deals with serious injuries as well and sets a specific target to reduce the number of serious injuries by 30% during the term of the strategy. There has been some disagreement over the definition of a serious life-changing injury, but that has now been agreed. Approximately 420 serious life-changing injuries occurred last year in addition to approximately 160 deaths. The number of people who experienced life-changing injuries is more than double the number who died on the roads. The new strategy takes that into account and aims to reduce that number as well. It is a major step forward in terms of how we deal with road safety.

The RSA is always concerned about enforcement. The authority has its own contacts with the Garda, separate from me. The Garda ensures me that enforcement is at similar levels to what it was in the past. It is not only the Garda Traffic Corps that carries out road traffic enforcement. All gardaí can enforce the Road Traffic Acts. There is a public perception that enforcement has been reduced, and that in itself is a problem. That is why I have asked the Garda to step up the visibility of its checkpoints, and the RSA is running radio advertisements, which Members may have heard, letting motorists know exactly how many drivers have been stopped and breathalysed and had fixed-charge notices imposed on them on a weekly basis.

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