Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask for a debate on road safety. As of yesterday, four more people died in the month of January than the previous January and, unfortunately, two more people died last night in a very sad crash. My condolences go to their families and all friends in County Mayo. That is six more people who died in this calendar year than the previous calendar year or 20 people as opposed to 14 people. One person is too many but 20 is certainly too many.

Yesterday, representatives of the Road Safety Authority appeared before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, mainly about the national car test and delays in the provision of driving tests, but I also asked them about road safety figures. A staggering statistic given, which the chief executive said staggered him when he discovered it, was that 40% of driver fatalities were people who had not been wearing their seatbelts, which is surprising in this day and age. The statistic surprised me and the chief executive, who is a man who works on road safety all day, every day. A total of 40% of driver fatalities involved people who had not been wearing their seatbelts. It is so annoying to get into a car and not put on a seatbelt because the car will make a pinging noise and most cars have had that facility for a very long time. We need a renewed effort when it comes to road safety. One accident ruins families and a fatality more so. We need an emphasis on drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and everybody who uses roads to improve road safety and the road environment. We can never be complacent about road safety. The number of fatalities has greatly reduced and is much better than it used to be. We have more cars on our roads and more people in this country. We need a debate on road safety and what we can all do, as users of the road space, to help roads be safer for everybody's benefit.