Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I an grateful for the opportunity to speak on this motion and to the Labour Party for bringing it forward. This year has been devastating for road fatalities. My heart goes out to all the families and loved ones affected by road deaths and road accidents. There have been 67 fatal collisions with 72 people killed on Irish roads so far this year. This is the highest we have seen in a number of years and it is very worrying. The European Commission’s country-by-country analysis comparing road deaths showed that Ireland had by far the worst percentage increase of any country, at a shocking 29%.

Only Ireland and Norway - the latter saw a 14% increase - had double-figure percentage rises. On average, countries saw road deaths fall, not increase, by 12%. It is clear that Ireland is not doing enough when it comes to ensuring the safety of all road users. This needs to be a priority for the Government going forward. Every life lost on the road is an awful tragedy and many of these deaths are preventable.

The Road Safety Authority has been running very effective campaigns, many including young people. This is extremely important, given that since 2019, people aged between 16 and 25 have accounted for about 20% of all road deaths, despite making up just 12% of the population. In 2023, more than a quarter of all road fatalities were in that group. We need to ensure that we involve those most affected and give them the information and tools necessary to tackle this issue. Programmes such as Your Road to Safety aimed at all transition year students to help them to develop the awareness, knowledge and skills to become safe road users are vital in ensuring safer roads. I saw a very powerful video yesterday made by the transition year students of St. Catherine’s Vocational School, Killybegs, County Donegal, as part of this programme. The video was designed as a television advertisement aimed at tackling dangerous behaviour behind the wheel. It addressed risky choices many young people make such as overloading the car with people, texting while driving and drink driving. The video showed great initiative by the students. It shows just how effective programmes like this can be when we involve young people and give them the opportunity to address the issues that impact them directly. Young people are more likely to engage in videos made by their peers than advertisements they see on television or online. We should be actively including young people in the design of road safety advertisements and campaigns. Videos such as the one made by the students from Killybegs prove that young people are willing and very capable.

The RSA should also work more closely with city and county councils. We cannot properly tackle this issue until that is the case. The fact that the RSA does not share data on road traffic collisions with local authorities due to GDPR concerns is ridiculous. How can GDPR impact road traffic incidents when the names of the person involved in accidents or registration numbers of their cars do not need to be provided? Information has to be provided on where the accident happened, how it happened and whether the conditions of the road impacted it. Surely, GDPR would not have any impact on that. GDPR becomes an excuse for bodies to do nothing, to not contact people and not talk to each other. That is wrong. I cannot believe this failure has anything to do with GDPR or the intentions of GDPR. It is just a cop-out by organisations. In the past, Donegal County Council had difficulty getting responses from the Garda on how road traffic accidents were happening. There was no record of a many of them. Communities knew they were happening but there was no official record. When the council went to do road safety measures, it had nothing to draw on to apply for funding to make that possible. I hope that issue has been addressed and, if so, that it will continue. Everybody must work together to ensure safety is a priority and that these measures are put in place and can be effective. How can we expect councils to tackle this issue when they are not given a full picture of the problem?

The Government needs to ensure sufficient funding is provided to local authorities. It is very disappointing that there has been a 3% cut in regional and local roads investment, while overall funding for road networks and road safety is down by 11%. This cut in funding, as with almost every cut in funding, hits rural communities the hardest. Most deaths on the roads happen on non-national roads because they are lower quality. These roads are largely located in rural communities. Funding needs to be targeted at them. We are talking about road safety, yet there has been an 11% cut in funding. It does not make sense. Perhaps that, rather than anything else, is the reason there has been such an increase in road traffic accidents and fatalities. Donegal's roads have required significant investment for a long time. Given that the county does not have a rail network and we rely solely on our roads, we should be prioritised for future funding. I urge the Government to ensure our roads are safe by providing sufficient, ring-fenced funding to local authorities for road repairs, cycle lanes and footpaths and to treat the increase in road deaths as a matter of urgency and priority. Rather than cutting funding, it should actively increase it. That is one way of reducing the number of deaths.

See this speech in context