Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very serious issue for us as a country. After decades of the numbers of road fatalities and injuries going down, there has been a significant increase in recent years, with 188 road fatalities in 2023. As of 11 April 2024, 61 people have lost their lives in 56 collisions on our roads. That is an increase of 13 on this time last year. Clearly, we need a more evidence-based approach to this. As the Deputy knows, the Road Traffic Bill has passed Committee Stage. That is important in the context of the new priorities, such as penalty points system reform, mandatory drug testing at the scene of serious collisions and so forth.

On the sharing of collision data, I agree with the Deputy one hundred per cent. It is not satisfactory that the inability to share collision data because of the GDPR has gone on. A specialist group has been established to resolve this and it needs to be resolved as quickly as possible because this is nonsense. That is my view.

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