Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While I am fully aware that the allocation of resources is a matter for the Garda Commissioner, the Minister for Justice and Equality has a responsibility to ensure effective road safety in this country. I tabled this question because at the beginning of February this year The Irish Times reported that the chief executive of the Road Safety Authority had written to the acting Garda Commissioner to express concern over the failure by the force to meet its own commitment to a 10% increase in the strength of the traffic corps by 31 December 2017. That is not merely a matter of the allocation of resources. A commitment was given by An Garda Síochána that there would be a certain percentage of gardaí allocated to road safety, but that has not happened. This failure is a matter of severe concern to the chief executive of the RSA and should also be a matter of significant concern to the Minister. I note that a commitment was made to increase the strength of the traffic corps by 10% by the end of 2017 and by 10% in the following year, 2018, but that has not happened. The statement in respect of this by a spokesperson for the RSA is noteworthy in that it says it is of serious concern that the commitment in the Garda policing plan for 2017 to increase resources incrementally for roads policing units by 10% across all regions by the end of 2017 "has not been delivered". We need to work on this.

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