Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. We know how devastating road deaths are. It is not for now; it is for a lifetime for families, as are the catastrophic injuries, which are life-changing for so many people. Of the 63 road deaths this year, the breakdown is 26 drivers, 19 passengers, 12 pedestrians, two cyclists and four motorcyclists, so it is not just drivers, and that point was well made by Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. A total of 26 cycling campaigns across the country wrote to the Road Safety Authority on two occasions recently. They are losing confidence. We are changing the way our roads are being used and we have to adapt to that. They say that the RSA remains silent on things that improve matters, such as reducing car dependency. The authority is failing people who walk, wheel and cycle by focusing on the least effective road safety measures, for example, handing out high-visibility clothing and giving talks to primary school children about road safety and making it their responsibility.

I am glad the Minister of State has said that the issue of road collision data will be dealt with. It is outrageous that it has gone on as long as it has.

Accidents used to be mapped. There was a cost-benefit analysis and a response. We have gone backwards and we should not from the point of view of GDPR. Enforcement is a significant issue. The Garda Commissioner was in front of the Committee of Public Accounts. It is his responsibility to deploy his resources. I took his issue with him about the falling numbers of gardaí dedicated to this task. He nearly had an argument with me and said that was not that case and that there was a static number. In fact, the figures tell me that it is not. If the Garda Commissioner is not aware of that, I am concerned.

The other issue is the 30 minutes of roads policing per shift. I am concerned about that. It looks like a sticking plaster, immediate and reactive approach. We need to recruit people and scale up dedicated people in this area. I know recruitment is going on at the moment. If somebody is on a shift, when he or she comes into work, will he or she do a lot of policing in close proximity to Garda stations? There could be a geographic imbalance in enforcement. It is a sticking plaster approach. It will produce results but a more strategic approach is needed. Within that strategic approach, there has to be a stable and increasing number of gardaí enforcing, with the use of cars rising and given the changing nature of our roads continues with a growing population.

With regard to the National Transport Authority, money is being handed back every year because it does not seem to be possible for local authorities to spend the money allocated to them, for example, for active travel infrastructure. I met my local authority officials who told us they would love to do it but they cannot get the engineers or do the work. That has to be looked at in terms of multi-annual budgeting so the local authorities have at least a fighting chance, perhaps employing people to do this on a constant basis. The idea that they get money early in the year and have to spend it by October is counterproductive to the smooth delivery of infrastructure that will improve the safety of our roads. I recall being on an strategic policy committee years ago and we looked at road safety as a distinctive piece of work. It used to be that a form was filled out when there was an accident. It was not just focused on fatalities but looked at different types of damage. There were the co-ordinates and it was mapped. Then, there was a strategic plan to deal with them. There may not have been enough money to deal with as many as they would have liked but the fact that we do not even have that information means local authorities are shooting in the dark. For example, if there was damage to a particular part of a car and that was repeated, it could be seen that there was a junction issue. The adequacy of the information is of concern and we are not taking a more strategic approach to this issue.

On the issue of education, a lot of the RSA's budget goes on vehicle testing. Given the changing nature of the kind of message that needs to be brought forward, there has been a sameness and, in fact, an absence of a constant road safety promotional effort in the past number of years. I have not really noticed a whole lot of what it has done. Social media, television and all sorts of other media should be used to get the message across. If we are going to go about this in a way that will reduce it, it cannot be sticking plaster measures. It must be multifaceted and strategic. Increased anger and intolerance at the moment are very noticeable in drivers. The use of mobile phones seems to be increasing rather than reducing. That requires significant attention from an enforcement perspective.

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