Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here today and for his unstinting commitment to making our roads safer. As he pointed out in his opening statement, we are in a crisis. That is the only way of describing it. In three out of the past four years, we have gone backwards. There have been 155 deaths this year and recent RSA statistics tell us that, in the past seven years, 1,600 cyclists have been seriously injured on our roads. We are experiencing a litany of death and disability and it is no longer acceptable to propose a piecemeal response, although I am not suggesting that is what the Minister of State is doing. We need an overarching road safety strategy that we can collectively advocate for and work towards and which will solve this problem once and for all. It is a problem that can be solved. It is not intractable. Vision Zero is not some pie-in-the-sky ambition. It can be achieved and it should be achieved.

We really need to look at the Road Safety Authority, its functions, its obligations and the sorts of legislative powers and resources that are available to it to do its job properly. I really wonder whether it is time to stand down the Road Safety Authority. Alternatively, it may be time to give it legislative powers and a greater impact by creating the office of road safety commissioner. That is what we need right now. In doing his job, the Minister of State is engaging with the Road Safety Authority, An Garda Síochána, two Departments, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, local authorities and a plethora of different bodies, all of which have road safety functions somewhere within their remit. However, it is obviously not working because there is no overarching individual or office with the legislative power and resources to pull all of these disparate strands together to make our roads safer for each and every individual who uses them. If the RSA is to morph into this office, that is great. If it requires completely standing down the RSA and starting all over again, that is equally great. Whatever is needed, it needs to happen now.

That commissioner should have absolute independence and have powers underpinned by legislation to gather data across a number of sources, as outlined by my colleague, so that we know exactly why people are losing their lives on our roads every day. He or she needs to have the powers to question the performance of An Garda, us as Members of the Oireachtas, local government, and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, with regard to our responsibility to ensure our roads are safe places to be. It needs to be able to research, carry out analysis of road safety programmes in other jurisdictions - road safety initiatives that actually work - and have the powers to have those initiatives introduced here with the minimum of delay. That is, frankly, what needs to happen.

We appoint commissioners to other sectors in Irish life. We have, quite rightly, appointed a commissioner for mental health, a Data Protection Commissioner, and numerous others I cannot recall right now. We appoint and establish them because we identify a very critical shortcoming in how we govern our nation, and it needs somebody with the powers and the singular focus of doing a particular job and getting that job done properly. Road safety in Ireland needs that initiative right now.

I have one and a half minutes speaking time left and I could talk for an hour and a half on this topic.

With respect to An Garda, which would also come under scrutiny from the commissioner, it needs to have a serious moment of self-reflection over the next couple of weeks and to really begin to question the culture that exists within an organisation that has a significant road safety remit itself. We need to see far greater enforcement of our current road safety laws, and if that is the case and if the Garda needs more resources to do that, let us give it those resources right now. An Garda needs to make far greater use of technology and to look beyond these shores to see what is happening in other jurisdictions, and which is happening very quickly and with a great degree of effectiveness in assisting police forces in other jurisdictions, to assist us in monitoring our roads with regard to road safety.

An Garda needs to be able to support and encourage, not dissuade, vulnerable road users to report dangerous driving. An Garda needs to be able to take a case against a driver who has been engaged in such dangerous driving and it needs to be able to use technology.

We turned on two red-light breaking detection cameras - I do not know what the technical term for them is - in Dublin city a couple of years ago. We turned them on for a few weeks in two locations in the city. They detected 1,700 motorists breaking red lights in those two locations. What did we do? We turned them off because we could not possibly be infringing the rights of motorists to break red lights by actually identifying who they were and issuing them with the correct penalties. Rather than rolling that out across this city and across other cities, we turned them off.

Anybody who cycles in Dublin city knows that a bus lane is an inherently dangerous place to be. I try to avoid them if at all possible. Why? First, you encounter buses, and we have seen some recent evidence that that is not exactly a safe thing to do. Second, you have to do battle with all of the motorists who believe the bus lane is an opportunity to catch up on other traffic that has just passed them.

I could go on but I will finish on this.

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