Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Seventy-nine people have died on our roads so far this year. It is a heartbreaking and frightening number. A third of those people were under the age of 25. That is a figure that strikes fear, particularly for parents, throughout the country.

The two main contributors to this terrible statistic are driving under the influence and speed. We have seen the advertisements and the campaigns and we know there are an additional 30 minutes of Garda checkpoints. However, we cannot hope to tackle this issue without a multi-agency approach. Our local authorities are tasked with the design and maintenance of the vast majority of our roads, yet for the past six years they have not been supplied with road traffic collision data from the Road Safety Authority. How can we expect local authority engineers to design safer roads and tackle collision blackspots when they are not even given the data they need? This information has been accumulating since 2018 but, due to a GDPR issue, it is not being shared. The history of road traffic accidents on particular roads has not been given to the engineers charged with making these roads safer.

Seventy-nine people have died so far this year. Seventy-nine families have suffered the devastating loss of a loved one. We must do everything we can to bring down these awful numbers. When will the Department of Transport finally resolve this frustrating and dangerous situation?

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