Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is correct when he speaks about complacency on the progress we have made. It is a significant problem. Every fatality and every life lost on our roads is one too many, and so are the life-changing injuries, where in a blink of an eye somebody's life has changed so profoundly, oftentimes because of a split-second decision that is made on our roads.

I draw the House's attention to a piece of research that was carried out last year by University College Cork. It stated that three-lane roads with climbing lanes have fatal accident rates eight times higher than motorways. Undivided roads are six times more dangerous than motorways, and dual carriageways are three times more dangerous. The lack of physical barriers on undivided roads must be addressed. Based on that research and others, motorways are the safest roadways we have in our network, despite the high speed people are travelling at.

In my constituency a significant number of people travel on the M4 to Dublin for work and leisure activities. The Minister must be mindful of the other decisions that are taken that have an impact on road safety. The M4 is a very good example of that. It is now the second most expensive toll road in this State. It runs parallel to the old road, which means you can either spend €1,700 a year to travel on a safe road or you can travel on the old road. The old road takes people through towns and villages. This is pushing traffic onto roads that were never designed to take such a high level of traffic, but it also takes people past housing estates, schools and pedestrians walking on the streets. That has an impact on road safety because those cars should not be there, but they are there because of the cost of using the toll road. Allowing the tolls to increase does not just affect the drivers, it affects road safety in other areas and it places an additional financial burden on the local authorities in those areas to maintain the roads they should not need to maintain to such an extent because that volume of traffic should not exist on them.

I do not hold myself up as any form of mechanic and I would never give mechanical advice, but even I know that the chassis of a car that has been spot welded back together should never pass an NCT, but it has done. I am driving for 25 years, which is when I bought my first car. I have never been breathalysed – not once. I can count on both hands the number of times I have been stopped at a Garda checkpoint. Enforcement has a very big role to play.

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