Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Some 72 people have lost their lives on Irish roads so far this year. That is more than three people every week who have not arrived home safely to their families. This is a crisis. If we were losing three people a week on our rail or bus network, they would be shut down immediately until we had investigated why it was happening. We have a Road Safety Authority that has not shared crash location data for eight years. We had traffic light cameras that were working and we switched them off. We have just two average speed camera systems in operation across the whole country. We have asked gardaí to do half an hour of road safety enforcement every day when at the same time hundreds of citizens have nowhere to upload footage of such violations. The Minister with responsibility is working really hard on this but he has to engage with the Road Safety Authority, An Garda Síochána, two Government Departments, and Transport Infrastructure Ireland. Will the Tánaiste and his colleagues in government please consider the appointment of a road safety commissioner with appropriate resources and powers and a singular focus of saving lives on Irish roads?

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