Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, Deputy Ross, for coming to the Chamber to answer my questions. In fairness to him, we do not always see eye to eye but he always comes in to deal with the issues I raise and I acknowledge that.

I want to raise two issues regarding our road network that I feel are absolute priorities and I have raised them previously. I raised some of these issues at the Committee of Public Accounts regarding the spending of public funds and I also raised them at the transport committee. I presume the Minister is well aware of the strategy of the Road Safety Authority, RSA, for 2013 to 2020. I am a big supporter of the Road Safety Authority. I welcome that the Minister finally made appointments to the board recently. I support the work of its chairman, Liz O'Donnell, and her team. Among the engineering measures in its seven-year plan, one of the most important is No. 53, which I have raised on several occasions. No 53 of the engineering measures to save people's lives is to carry out 150 minor realignment schemes on the national road network by 2020. I asked Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, about this on a number of occasions and it is going to meet me to discuss it. It has told me it does not have a hope of making that figure. At most it may reach 60 and more likely 50. This means there are 100 black spots throughout the country where there will be no improvement in safety. When I asked Michael Nolan, the very impressive CEO, what will the consequence of this be and whether people would die on the roads, his answer was a very simple "Yes".

The Minister has spoken an awful lot about road safety and, in fairness, I accept his bona fides. I do not always agree with some of the points he makes but I accept his bona fides. I want the Minister to support the Road Safety Authority and ensure he can provide the funding for all 150 of these, or least double from 50 to 100 the number of minor road safety projects the RSA has identified to save people's lives. If this work is not done, the head of Transport Infrastructure Ireland has told me to my face that people will die in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The reason I ask about this today is because the capital plan will be announced in the coming weeks or months and the Minister has the chance to put funding into it.

I encourage the Minister to work with the TII to look at safety measures on the M7. There has been an escalation of accidents between Roscrea and Birdhill. People have died. I knew them. May they rest in peace. There are safety issues such as why the Roscrea and the Moneygall on-and-off ramps are shorter, sharper junctions than the long junctions to be found everywhere else on the motorway? They are causing difficulties. I argue there is an engineering issue near Birdhill. Will the Minister ask the TII, and provide the funding, to do an analysis of what is happening, given all the accidents there, as well as giving us assurances he is 100% behind the Road Safety Authority in saving lives between now and 2020 by providing the funding it has asked for and planned for in its strategy, which the Minister 100% supports?

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