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

I welcome the opportunity to address the House. As many Deputies will be aware, in three of the past four years, we have seen an increase in road-related fatalities and serious accidents. Last year, 2023, was a particularly stark year on our roads with 188 people losing their lives, the worst total in close to a decade. Tragically, this upward trend has continued well into 2024. As of this morning, there have been 63 fatalities on our roads this year, which is an increase of 14, or 28.5%, compared with this time last year and puts us on course for more than 220 fatalities for the year in total. Many of those fatalities will be young people. It is incumbent on all of us working in the sector to redouble our efforts to reverse the current trend using everything at our disposal. Legislative change, renewed and enhanced educational campaigns, enhanced enforcement both through increased Garda numbers and technology, and improved engineering will all form part of the solution.

While we have made great strides since our first national road safety strategy began in 1998, that progress has passed and we must do more to reverse the downward trend of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. While there has been an increase in road deaths in recent years, data we have received so far confirms that the four main causes of death on our roads remain speeding, distraction, not wearing a seatbelt and intoxicated driving. Road Safety Authority research supports the data. In a national representative survey conducted in 2023, 14% of drivers reported driving within one hour of having consumed drugs in the past 30 days and 15% reported driving within one hour of drinking alcohol. The social acceptability of drink-driving also appears to be increasing, with 72% of respondents to a 2021 survey indicating it is unacceptable compared with 82% of respondents in 2015.

Recent research on mobile phone use among drivers aged 18 to 24 commissioned by the Road Safety Authority has also found that 100% of focus group participants use their mobile phones while driving, at least occasionally. There is also a perception that there is no risk of being caught, which is of serious concern. Phone dependence was cited as a major contributory factor. Deputies may be aware that the risk of being involved in a collision increases by a factor of four when a driver uses his or her mobile phone and we cannot allow this killer behaviour to become normalised among young people or among the driving population more generally.

The failure to wear a seatbelt remains a serious factor in road deaths. Of the 101 drivers and passengers killed in seatbelt-equipped motor vehicles in 2023, 40% were wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision, 10% were not wearing a seatbelt and the information is not yet known in respect of the remaining 50%. Those are worryingly high numbers of people not wearing seatbelts. For the data we have for last year, one in five of those who died were not wearing a seatbelt.

Despite improvements in car technology, in 2024, compliance remains a serious driver of road deaths. Speeding remains one of the greatest risk factors on our roads. Most people know that speeding is dangerous and yet many people continue to do it. Speed reduces the time people have to react and makes collisions more likely. It also makes it more likely that when collisions do happen, they will lead to death or serious injury. We are working on multiple fronts to address this problem, as I will outline shortly. The priorities for my Department include the speed limit review, the wider review and reform of the Road Safety Authority, developing a national safety camera strategy, addressing the multiple learner permit issue, reviewing the driver testing curriculum and increasing investment in locations of interest, which were formerly known as accident black spots. As many in this House have stated, the reforms undertaken by this House and the Road Safety Authority must be underpinned and supported by strong and visible enforcement. This is an issue I have consistently raised with the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner. Drivers who are engaged in killer behaviours on our roads need to believe they will be caught.

I welcome the announcement that 75 more members will be deployed to roads policing units this year and again next year, and any action that increases the visibility of enforcement on our roads to address this trend is welcome. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of this increase in roads policing time. Moreover, the need to ensure that is underpinned by strong policing plans, strengthened enforcement and the wider deployment of roads policing units will be of central importance if we are going to break this trend. There have been concerning matters raised by road safety groups and many in this House about the level and threshold of enforcement. That is something that is getting ongoing oversight on foot of the meeting we had with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice, and something I will continue to pursue.

With regard to legislation, I recently brought forward the Road Traffic Bill 2024. I want to acknowledge the support and co-operation of people in this House to ensure its swift passage through both Houses of the Oireachtas. Having completed the Seanad last week, I expect it to be signed into law by the President this week. It is concise and focused legislation that seeks to respond to the trends we are witnessing in a robust and systematic way. The legislation addresses a number of key areas of road safety concern. In response to the rise in drug driving, the Bill introduces mandatory drug testing at the scene of a collision on the same basis as alcohol. The evidence indicates that drink and drug driving are now similarly prevalent and while neither are acceptable, it makes no sense to treat drugs differently. This mandatory approach will make a difference.

In the first three months of 2024, 2,588 driver drug tests analysed by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety have already tested positive for at least one drug, with cannabis accounting for more than half of those positives and over 30% found positive for cocaine. This message must be clear and unambiguous: being intoxicated and getting behind a wheel is never acceptable, regardless of the substance used. I intend to enact this change in the coming weeks and to commence this part of the legislation.

To increase the deterrent effect of penalty points, the Bill introduces a major reform of the system introduced in 2002, which has served us well over the past two decades. Previously, a driver caught with multiple penalty point offences in a single act would only receive one set of penalty points. Going forward, they will receive at least two sets of points and potentially more in the event of an unsuccessful court challenge where three or more offences have been detected. This important reform will encourage safer driving behaviour across the range of penalty point offences, and ensure there is no benefit to drivers from stacking up offences, so to speak.

Finally, the evidence shows that speeding and inappropriate speed are major contributors to collisions and road deaths for drivers, passengers and pedestrians. Last September, my Department published the speed limit review, and it recommends that the default limit on national secondary roads be reduced from 100 km/h to 80 km/h, from 80 km/h to 60 km/h on rural local roads, and from 50 km/h to 30 km/h in urban areas. These default limits are now legislated for in the Road Traffic Bill. These speeds are defaults, and the setting of speed limits will be an important function in the context of local authorities, and their role will be respected. As I said, I expect this to be signed shortly by the President. Following this, the updated guidance will issue to local authorities, and that will allow them to begin preparations for review when the new councils are elected after the local elections this summer. My Department is working closely with the local authority sector to ensure that the new limits are introduced in a co-ordinated and synchronised way across the country and that they are brought in in a way that ensures consistency and ends the fragmentation we see nationally.

The Road Traffic Bill 2024 has also addressed some legislative anomalies surrounding the minimum length of an ancillary disqualification, which could be used in court to effectively avoid a mandatory six-month disqualification, and to provide an explicit power for An Garda Síochána to hold someone at the roadside for up to 30 minutes while waiting for the result of a drug test.

With regard to the issue of drivers continually renewing learner permits without ever sitting a driving test, Deputies will be keenly aware of the issues that the driver testing service has had over the past year and the unacceptable delays, about which I know many Deputies have been contacted by their constituents. I am pleased to report that following sanction from my Department to hire an additional 75 testers last March, average testing waiting times have steadily declined since last August, with wait times declining from over 30 weeks last August to over 15 weeks in the most recent figures from the end of March. I have been told by the Road Safety Authority that the service level agreement waiting time of ten weeks will be restored by the middle of the year, and that will help address the wider backlog and ensure the resources are there to tackle the issue of multiple learner permits.

I have also been on record previously about the need for us to deploy technology on a wider basis to support enforcement and to encourage safer driving. I welcome the fact that there has been an increase in Go Safe hours, which has continued this year, and the commitment from An Garda Síochána to roll out three average speed cameras and nine static cameras this year. In addition to these immediate measures, Transport Infrastructure Ireland is now leading the development of a comprehensive safety camera strategy for publication this year, which will establish the framework for the future development of our camera enforcement capacity nationally. This strategy will also consider the use of cameras for purposes beyond speeding, such as identifying mobile phone use and the non-wearing of seatbelts, as well as addressing anyone who is engaged in reckless or lawless behaviour. They need to be tackled properly and using technology will have a clear role to play.

Another important priority is to review our national driver testing curriculum to ensure it is fit for purpose, future-proofed and responsive to changes in vehicle technology. Our curriculum has not been reviewed in a number of decades, and I am pleased to note that the RSA has now commenced work on this important project. This evaluation will be informed by additional research currently under way into changing driver behaviour, and international best practice will be considered in order to produce the wider recommendations on improving driver education in Ireland.

Separate to the work of the Road Safety Authority, my Department has commissioned an independent review of the Road Safety Authority. The RSA was established in 2006 and much has changed in the intervening period. The objective of this review is to conduct a thorough, proper and comprehensive examination of the structures, funding model, services and strategic goals to ensure that the authority can deliver the Government's road safety strategy and its other statutory functions. I expect to receive preliminary findings next month. We will consider those recommendations and bring them to Government this summer, and implement a plan to ensure it is equipped to deliver its road safety mandate in the years ahead.

I can report to the House that the Road Safety Authority will spend an additional €3 million in the coming weeks on increased road safety public awareness campaigns, in addition to the €3.6 million funding for awareness campaigns approved late last year. I expect the Road Safety Authority to spend all of this funding in advance of the implementation of the review later this year. I also expect that a formal proposal to resolve the issue of collision data sharing will be sent to the Data Protection Commissioner this month and will expedite any legislative changes identified, if necessary on foot of that engagement.

On the issue of data sharing, it is important to be clear that data-led interventions continue to take place both on our national and local roads. The Department undertakes a detailed collision analysis on the regional and local road network that identifies locations of interest - formerly known as blackspots - on the network on behalf of the local authority. The data utilised for this analysis was requested and obtained from the Road Safety Authority under a memorandum of understanding with certain datasets. Acknowledging the importance of progressing this work, the latest data received was late last year. These locations of interest, when identified, are notified officially to each local authority by the Department. In 2023, 55 locations of interest safety schemes were applied for and funded and in 2024, 60 locations of interest safety schemes were applied for and are being funded and implemented this year.

In addition to these locations of interest, local authorities also submit applications for safety schemes based on local knowledge and engineering expertise. Local authorities have also received funding in this regard. These are considered for funding and across 2022 to 2024, inclusive, close to 900 safety schemes have been funded by the Department. TII has also allocated over €100 million in 2024 to safety programmes aimed at addressing issues identified on roads and at junctions where there is poor horizontal and vertical alignment or poor visibility, as well as to larger-scale projects targeting safety improvements across our national road network.

I will now conclude my opening remarks, and I look forward to hearing the contributions from Deputies on this important topic.

See this speech in context