Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Today, I will bring the Road Traffic Bill 2024 before the House. This Bill is an urgent and essential part of the Government's response to the concerning trend of rising road fatalities and serious injuries. This is a short and focused Bill that aims to effectively address issues with driver behaviours through legislative change. Last year, we witnessed 188 deaths on our roads. This essentially places us on the same footing for road safety as we were on ten years ago. We have witnessed a dramatic negative shift in driver behaviour following the Covid-19 pandemic. Our current system is under strain and action must be taken to reverse this worrying trend. The main behaviours driving this trend are speeding, intoxicated driving, distracted driving and careless driving. As we debate this issue today, it is important that we do not forget the families impacted by these behaviours and the lives that have been lost. There is no acceptable level of death or serious injury on our roads. One life lost is one too many.

I thank all of the numerous people and organisations who have contributed to the development of the proposals in this Bill. Significant cross-agency and departmental discussions took place under a legislative enabler group chaired by the Department of Transport. I also thank the Oireachtas joint committee for waiving pre-legislative scrutiny.

Sadly, the level of death and destruction that took place on our roads in 2023 is being repeated in 2024. Time is of the essence. Ireland has made great progress on road safety since the turn of the millennium. In 1999, there were 413 deaths on Irish roads. In 2018, there were 134. However, the trend has now turned in the wrong direction. Last year, there were 188. As of today, the figures for 2024 are 22 deaths, which is four down on this date last year.

A number of commitments supporting road safety under the programme for Government have been achieved to date. These include the development of a comprehensive road safety strategy, the signing of the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 into law and the completion of the speed limit review. Furthermore, my Department is currently engaged in talks with the Law Reform Commission on the necessary steps to consolidate road traffic legislation. This is a major project that will involve not just consolidation, but also the correction of any anomalies identified during the process.

The road safety strategy was developed with inputs from key stakeholders such as the Road Safety Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Departments of Justice, Health and Education and my own Department of Transport. The strategy runs from 2021 to 2030 and has the goal of reducing road fatalities and serious injuries by 50% in 2030. This will help put us on track to reach Vision Zero by 2050. Vision Zero is a long-term goal aimed at eradicating road deaths and serious injuries by 2050. It has been adopted by the European Commission in its own road safety strategy. We are currently in phase one of the road safety strategy. This phase runs from 2021 to 2024. Last month, a high-level meeting of stakeholders took place to review the progress to date and to engage in workshops aimed at further enhancing our current approach. The event involved representatives from all over the country as road safety impacts everyone on our island. The destruction on our roads in 2023 was at the forefront of the discussion with representatives from the Departments of Transport and Justice, the RSA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and local authorities. It was vital that we brought all relevant stakeholders together under the one roof for this discussion early on in 2024. The event saw some really important insights and proposals to consider as we move forward with the strategy.

It is worth noting that, in response to the rising trend in fatalities throughout 2023, my Department gave sanction last October for the Road Safety Authority to spend an additional €3.6 million on increased public awareness campaigns in the latter and final months of 2023 and the early months of this year. In addition, as part of the road safety strategy, officials from my Department, TII, An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice travelled to Scotland last October on a high-level fact-finding mission relating to camera-based enforcement. Building on this work and parallel work led by the National Transport Authority, TII has agreed to lead the development of a comprehensive national camera enforcement strategy. This is one of my foremost ministerial priorities for 2024.

Strengthening road traffic legislation is only part of improving road safety, however. RSA research has shown that the presence of more gardaí on our roadsides is an effective deterrent to dangerous driving behaviours, along with increased penalties and the use of technology. Legislation must, therefore, be backed up by robust, vigorous and visible enforcement by An Garda Síochána in order that drivers are aware that there will be consequences for failing to follow the law and, as a result, adjust their behaviour accordingly. I therefore welcome the fact that the 20% increase in GoSafe hours announced by the Minister for Justice in September for the final quarter of last year is continuing into the early months of this year. This will deliver 9,000 hours a month, an increase from 7,500.

We are at a point where reducing fatality and serious injury figures is getting more difficult. The Bill provides for a number of measures that will target driver behaviours that are causing or contributing to the worrying trends we are seeing. I will explain these measures in a few moments. Deputies will be aware that there is a large body of road traffic legislation covering a wide range of topics. As I have said previously, the Road Traffic Bill 2024 is a short and focused Bill that will primarily target driving behaviours. As Minister of State with responsibility for road safety, it is my duty to bring forward strong proposals that will successfully help all of us in turning the tide on the devastating scenes we are witnessing on our roads nearly every day. This Bill will deal with three main issues: penalty points reform, mandatory drug testing and the implementation of key recommendations from the speed limit review.

The first issue this Bill will address relates to penalty points. Penalty points were introduced in Ireland under the Road Traffic Act 2002. The primary purpose of penalty points is to encourage safer driving behaviours and to maintain vehicle roadworthiness. It is important to note that, in addition to drivers receiving penalty points on their licence, in most cases, they are also issued with fixed charge notices for the driving offence detected. Once a fully qualified driver reaches 12 points, he or she receives a driving disqualification. For novice drivers and learner permit holders, this threshold is reduced to seven penalty points. As part of the road safety strategy, my Department was tasked with reviewing the penalties for serious road traffic offences.

Under existing legislation, the 2002 Act specifies that, when a person commits more than one penalty point offence on the same occasion, he or she will receive only one set of penalty points, the highest or joint highest that applies. The driver is still issued with fixed charge notices for all offences detected. The Bill will amend the provisions surrounding multiple offence detection so that, in future, drivers who are detected committing more than one offence at once will receive multiple penalty points. Following on from legal advice, the new system proposed in this Bill will work in the following way. If a person pays two fixed charges for offences arising out of the same occasion, he or she will get both sets of penalty points. If he or she pays more than two fixed charges, he or she will get two sets, the highest or joint highest. If he or she is convicted in court of penalty point offences on the same occasion, he or she will get all sets of penalty points involved. These two parts of the system will work together. If a person gets five fixed charge notices for five offences on the same occasion, he or she might pay three but choose to go to court in respect of the other two. In that case, he or she will get two sets of points out of the three fixed charges paid and both sets of points from the convictions concerned. This change in law will encourage safer driver behaviours and ensure that drivers who continually commit driving offences are disqualified.

The second issue the Bill will address concerns drug driving. Under the Road Traffic Act 2010, members of An Garda Síochána may test drivers for drugs at the scene of serious collisions whereas they are required to test for alcohol. This is known as mandatory alcohol testing. The Bill will amend the existing provision so as to require members of An Garda Síochána to test for both alcohol and drugs at the scene of collisions. The research shows that, unfortunately, drug driving is becoming much more prevalent in our society. It is vital that we have the necessary legislative tools at our disposal to remove people who drive under the influence of intoxicants from our roads. Mandatory drug testing will play an invaluable role in increasing safety on our roads. My Department has liaised significantly with the Medical Bureau of Road Safety on this issue.

The third issue covered by the Bill concerns speed limits. Deputies will be aware that, in the programme for Government, we committed to conducting a review of speed limits. This review was brought to Government in September of last year and published that month. The Road Traffic Bill 2024 includes provisions relating to recommendations arising from the review. Speeding is one of the main causes of road deaths and serious injuries. It cannot be emphasised enough. We have too many roads with incorrect speed limits. There are many built-up areas where the set limit is 50 km/h. Similarly, there are countless rural roads around the country that have limits of 100 km/h or 80 km/h in locations where no one could safely travel at these speeds.

We must address the issue of speeding now while we have the appropriate legislative vehicle to carry it forward. Too many lives have been lost to speeding and it goes without saying that a driver might be following the posted speed limit and still cause a collision based on the fact that the road is not designed for that particular speed. Again, drivers must take responsibility to ensure they are driving safely and can react to any changing circumstances that may arise.

To put the issue of default speed limits for built-up areas into perspective, Dublin has the majority of 30 km/h zones across the country and Dublin is also the region that saw the lowest increase in road fatalities last year with 14 deaths in 2022 and 15 deaths in 2023. The Bill will amend the default speed limits from 50 km/h to 30 km/h for built-up areas. National secondary roads will go from 100 km/h to 80 km/h. The speed limits on local rural roads will be reduced from 80 km/h to 60 km/h. This will ensure that public places such as roads in towns and villages will have safer speed limits. Evidence has shown that reduced speed limits increases safety for road users. If passed, this proposal will permit the introduction of a reformed speed limit framework. My Department will work closely with local authorities to ensure this can be advanced and co-ordinated across the country when the guidance is issued

I give notice here there are some matters we intend to address as well on Committee Stage. Penalty points are meant to act as a deterrent to illegal driving behaviours with a deterrent factor based on the risk for a driver that they could accumulate enough points to be disqualified for six months. For this reason, there are no penalty points for offences that, on conviction, carry a consequential, that is, an automatic disqualification. Where convictions do not carry a consequential disqualification, the court still has the option of imposing an ancillary disqualification. It is proposed to amend section 2(8) of the 2002 Act so that points will be applied in any case involving an ancillary disqualification that is for less than six months and will not be applied in cases involving an ancillary disqualification for six months or more. This ensures that drivers still receive penalty points if they are given a short ancillary disqualification.

A recent High Court case has raised a specific difficulty with the law on roadside testing for intoxicants. While the High Court ruling is subject to appeal by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, following legal advice, the Department considers it prudent to amend the law in this area. The difficulty is that when the gardaí take a specimen of breath or oral fluid to test for alcohol or drugs, they currently have no explicit power to require the person to remain at the scene until the test produces a result. This is particularly important for drug tests, which take a few minutes to develop and get a test result. Following legal advice my Department therefore proposes amending sections 9 and 10 of the 2010 Act to create an explicit power to require a person to remain at the scene of a roadside intoxicant test. We are also taking the opportunity to allow gardaí to ask for a second specimen in case for some reason the first specimen does not deliver a result. The maximum time a garda will be able to require someone to wait will be 30 minutes. This would allow two tests for breath and two tests for oral fluid to be conducted, allowing that in on-the-ground situations a garda may have to attend to other matters between tests.

The Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 contains provisions for a new class of vehicles called powered personal transporters, PPTs, which includes e-scooters. The 2023 Act inserts a definition of PPTs into the Road Traffic Act 1961. This definition refers to parameters for weight, speed and power output. The 2023 Act also allows the Minister to vary these parameters for specific classes of PPT. The intention was that the parameters in the Act would define a PPT while regulations can then define certain types by reference to lower weights, speed and power as appropriate. Subsequent legal concerns have indicated that the ministerial power could be used to make any of these parameters higher than those set out in the Act. It is now proposed to remove this ministerial power, along with the cross-reference to it, to ensure the parameters passed by the Oireachtas are not bypassed. Additionally, the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 introduces a new definition for e-bikes. It has come to my Department's attention that under section 38 of the Road Traffic Act 1961, legislation requires that riders of low-powered e-bikes would have to take a driving test and obtain a driving licence. This is not in accordance with policy and is not required by EU driver licensing law. My Department intends to amend section 38 so that low-powered e-bikes will not require a driver test or licence.

This is a short and focused Bill dealing with a number of important issues that I believe will make a real difference to road safety. The Bill will encourage safer driving behaviours through the reformed penalty points system, mandatory drug testing and reduced speed limits. This is part of a multifaceted approach we are taking to maximise the response to the terrible tragedies we witnessed in 2023. I hope the House will appreciate the value of what we are doing here. I look forward to the debate and listening to the suggestions from Deputies. The Bill is urgently needed. Everyone on this island is a stakeholder in road safety. It is essential that we as elected Members of this House show leadership and pass these much needed reforms. I hope to see the Bill progressed as quickly as possible.

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