Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on road safety and I thank the Labour Party for bringing this forward. Any move or action aimed at reducing road deaths and accidents must be welcomed. However, when I read that this Government actually cut 10% or a whopping €150 million from the road safety and maintenance budget in budget 2024, I was completely taken aback.

The numbers are telling. Some 72 people have already lost their lives on the roads this year, as my colleague has said. Each of these people probably had plans for when they got home. We are only halfway through 2024. The first death of this year was in my constituency of Kildare South where there have been 73 collisions so far, with seven out of ten of these on rural roads. My constituency is predominantly a rural area and I have lost count of the representations made to Kildare County Council asking for traffic calming measures on roads such as the Athy to Carlow road, where more than half of the vehicles travelling on it over a seven-day period were found to be speeding - some going over 120 km/h - with three collisions over two nights in March this year.

I have come to expect the almost standard response that there is nothing in the budget for traffic calming, speed bumps or any other road safety measures to be installed by the local authorities. I am still waiting for a decision on a safety plan for the Borraderra road in Monasterevin, which again has seen more than its fair share of accidents. I have had the engineer out to no avail. When reduced numbers of gardaí on patrol in Monasterevin, Athy and surrounding areas are factored in, the situation is even worse.

The reduction in numbers of gardaí has a direct effect on the number of people who are speeding and there can be no effective enforcement without gardaí. I have yet to receive a proper response to enquiries about the actual number of gardaí and Garda vehicles in my constituency. The Minister of State might be able to enlighten me, or he might put someone on the case who would do that for me.

The Government needs to reverse the funding cuts. Road policing units must have a minimum number of gardaí in them. Consequences must be proper deterrents and legal loopholes that prevent the RSA from sharing collision data with road engineers must be corrected. The Minister of State said that is being worked on, which is welcome, but I want to know when it will be brought into force.

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