Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and the Minister of State on their new appointments. I look forward to working with them on these important issues.

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on this very important issue. The Labour Party introduced a motion in the Dáil on this very topic in May last year. We did so in the context of a really concerning increase in the number of fatalities on our roads. Last year up to May, 73 people had been killed in road accidents and collisions, representing a 30% increase over the same period in the previous year. As has been mentioned previously, Ireland is an outlier in Europe because our road deaths increased between 2019 and 2023. There is no acceptable number of fatalities on our roads. Every single one of the deaths is a horrendous tragedy for family members, friends and communities, who will forever grieve the loss of their loved one in what in most cases was a preventable incident.

We also need to acknowledge that while road deaths may grab the headlines, many more people acquire life-changing injuries as a result of road collisions. Serious injuries to cyclists are actually increasing in Dublin. Very worryingly, the number of injured child cyclists recorded by hospitals is actually six times higher than on Garda records.

I acknowledge the positive initiatives taken on road safety in recent times. Speed kills – simple as. In recent days, we have seen the first tranche of reduced speed limits coming into effect under the new Road Safety Act. The Labour Party welcomes this. Now it is imperative that the reductions in urban areas and on national secondary roads come in on schedule later this year. Funding for signage should be made available for that immediately.

We know from evidence in Wales that when the Labour Party there introduced lower speed limits in built-up areas, there was a 30% drop in casualties of the roads. Therefore, I am optimistic. However, we cannot allow ourselves to think that simply lowering speed limits is a panacea, or that harsher penalties for infringements of those limits or other offences, like drunk driving or phone use, comprise a panacea. Ultimately, the determining factor in the success of any of these initiatives will be enforcement, and that means significant investment. We need to need to consider numbers in the Garda traffic corps, for example. Before the recession, the corps was approximately 1,300 strong. After the recession, there was a massive drop, to approximately 550. Despite many promises for a long time, Garda traffic corps numbers have been creeping up and down, between 600 and 750. Getting the number in the Garda traffic corps up has to be part of the solution.

However, significant investment in permanent, stationary traffic cameras is also needed. I was quite encouraged to see commitments to this in the programme for Government. This is an area where we could really see the benefits of automation. I ask the Minister to follow through on that and give it priority. We can talk all we like about penalty points and speed limits, which are obviously good and necessary measures, but what we are really talking about what will actually have an effect is behavioural change. People need to know that they will actually be punished for infringements of the rules of the road.

I want to echo briefly something my party colleague Deputy Conor Sheehan raised recently, namely sentencing guidelines when it comes to dangerous driving. Deputy Sheehan raised the issue in the context of a decision to allow the sentence of the person who killed Joe Drennan to run concurrently with another sentence for a separate issue. I was glad to see that, just yesterday, the DPP decided to appeal that sentence, but it should not have taken heroic activism from Joe's family, in the face of unimaginable grief, for that decision to be made. If we really want to deter people from

dangerous driving, we have to change the behaviour of the minority of road users who engage in it. That does mean harsher and stricter sentencing guidelines, as well as the potential lifetime loss of driving licence privileges for any driver found responsible for a fatal collision. I ask the Minister for Transport to work with the Minister for Justice to explore the scope of doing something on this.

Another key element, which featured heavily in our Labour motion last May, is road maintenance and the condition of many of our roads. This issue is inseparable from the climate crisis. Increased rainfall and more extreme weather events are shredding roads across the country, and it is only going to get worse if we do not ask act.

I hope, though, that the Minister acknowledges that continued investment in the maintenance and development of our cycling networks is also required. I pay tribute to my colleagues in Dublin Cycling Campaign, particularly the south Dublin group, on their terrific advocacy on this. When we talk about road safety, we are not just talking about people in cars but also about vulnerable road users, including cyclists and pedestrians. It was great to see the investment and increase in active travel infrastructure during the term of the previous Government, but it is still too often the case that cyclists are forced onto roads because of a lack of safe cycling infrastructure. We need to continue building and connecting our safe cycling network and invest properly in maintaining it. If we build it, they will come.

There are other, more technical but equally important areas where we could do better to increase road safety. Data sharing, as has been mentioned here today, is a huge issue. It is something my colleague Deputy Duncan Smith has raised on several occasions. The RSA really has to hand over the data to local authorities after a collision as soon as possible. Local authorities need to know where the black spots in their areas are so issues leading to crashes, with fatalities or injuries, can be dealt with before any further incidents occur. I am aware that the previous transport Minister was working on legislation in this regard and I was pleased with the Minister's comments undertaking to further this today.

I look forward to the publication of the implementation plan for the recommendations that arose out of the review of the RSA. I sincerely hope it deals with the shortcomings that have been so evident in that organisation. We cannot ignore the fact that, recently, more than 30 road safety advocacy groups declared no confidence in the RSA and stated it is not fit for purpose. There have been serious deficiencies and I welcome the fact that there will be a separation between the services functions and the wider road safety initiatives. There needs to be a culture shift in the RSA, though. The authority has often placed undue onus on vulnerable road users, urging them to protect themselves rather than actually making our roads and travel infrastructure safer and trying to change driver behaviour. There has been a victim-blaming attitude in the RSA whereby it offers people high-vis vests, meaning the speeding drivers distracted on their phones will not hit them. In health and safety risk management, it is imperative to eliminate or isolate a hazard in the first instance. PPE or high-vis clothing would only ever be proposed as a last resort. This approach needs to be adopted by the authority.

The new RSA needs to bring in more expertise in road design. We know the Government is gung ho for new roads, so it is crucial that the authority builds expertise in safe design principles and has an input into the design process for any new road development. It is also crucial that convenient, segregated and comfortable active travel routes be provided alongside any major new transport infrastructure, including metro and Luas lines. That is without mentioning the chronic backlog of driving tests and the RSA's silence in public debates about walking and cycling infrastructure. The RSA, in its new form, has to do more and better. I really hope the outcome of the review, be it two new agencies or some other configuration, brings about a better functioning road safety authority and safer roads for everyone.

I will conclude by giving credit where it is due, namely to the former Minister for Transport, Deputy Chambers, and the former Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Lawless, who in their previous briefs passed the Road Traffic Act and progressed the review of the RSA. It is vital that we now see the implementation plan published and expedited, and, crucially, that the new RSA, whatever shape it takes, be funded to properly carry out its mandate.

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