Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Department was in contact with us and it explained the background to this Bill, as she has done again today. I thank her for that. She outlined the nature of the time pressure due to legislative changes at EU level so Sinn Féin is happy to support the legislation. I will keep my comments brief given the requirement to deal with all Stages this week to ensure the legislation can be put in place by 31 October.

Railways are an incredibly important part of our transport infrastructure serving workers, tourists and businesses across the State. The neglect of our railways by successive Governments in the 20th century set us back decades and it is a price many people continue to pay today. Some 81% of people who leave my county of Meath daily to go to work do so by car because the rail infrastructure was allowed crumble and disappear in the past 60 or 70 years. It is a terrible shame which is replicated in many other areas, most evidently in the north west where there is a total absence of rail connection.

I spoke to the Minister of State previously about the need to invest in our railways to make up for lost time and contribute to our efforts to reduce carbon emissions. There is a compelling case to be made for passenger and freight rail.

The work of the RAIU is to investigate when things go wrong on the rail network. The purpose of an investigation carried out by the RAIU is to improve railway safety by establishing the cause of an accident with a view to making recommendations for the avoidance of similar incidents in the future. In 2019, the RAIU completed 43 preliminary examination reports into a wide range of incidents on our railways. These included tram road traffic collisions, a trap and drag incident on the Luas, level crossing collisions, derailments, fires, cattle strikes, apparent self-harm occurrences and a near miss collision between a train and a rail worker. It is clear from those few examples that the work of the RAIU is very important and is central to establishing what has gone wrong in a particular situation to try to prevent its recurrence in the future.

It is vital that these powers of investigation are available for rail accidents including those on light rail and heritage railways. This Bill seeks to ensure that continues to be the case after 31 October taking account of changes at EU level and therefore we are happy to support the Bill and facilitate its expedient passage. The RAIU is a small operation that comprises very few individuals but the work they do is extremely important and often goes under the radar. We want to thank them for that work.

See this speech in context