Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The primary aim of the Government's Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 is to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on Irish roads by 50%. As stated at the launch of the strategy in December 2021, this means reducing deaths on Ireland’s roads annually from 144 to 72 or lower and reducing serious injuries from 1,259 to 630 or lower by 2030. This will be the first step in Ireland’s journey towards realising Vision Zero, the international strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable and sustainable mobility for all by 2050.

Implementation of this ambitious strategy is supported by a comprehensive set of 186 high-impact and supporting actions. The strategy will be delivered over three phases with action plans for each. I am happy to reassure the Deputy that my Department, in conjunction with stakeholders and associated Government agencies, is well under way in the delivery of phase 1 for 2021 to 2024. The subsequent phases 2 and 3 of the strategy and their associated actions will be developed in the six months leading up to the launch of each of those phases. This development will, in each case, take account of a review of the action outcomes of the preceding phase of the strategy.

As I have no doubt the Deputy will agree, the delivery of an ambitious strategy such as this requires a robust governance structure, and I assure him that this is currently in place to support and enable what is essentially a transformative road safety programme.

At the top of this framework sits the ministerial committee on road safety, which I chair jointly with the Minister for Justice. A senior officials' group, comprising senior figures from the key bodies charged with implementing the published road safety actions for each phase of the strategy, known as the road safety transformation partnership board, stands below the ministerial committee. This cross-departmental, multi-agency partnership board provides executive accountability, advice and quarterly updates to the ministerial committee on the delivery of the Government’s strategy. Both the ministerial committee and the road safety transformation partnership board meet quarterly.

Supporting the road safety action owners charged with implementing various aspects of the strategy are a number of cross-agency enabler groups, including a legislative enabler group.

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