Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach. I wish to raise an important issue of road safety. As the Minister of State will probably be aware – or perhaps he is not – the Road Safety Authority, RSA, does not release data about collisions to researchers and it has not done so for years. We need better research on road safety to save lives and the key indicator of safety on a road is the number of collisions. However, the RSA is not releasing incident-level data. It is especially important to get data on the lower-level incidents. Incidents that result in death will be reported on in the media, so researchers are able to fill in some of the blanks that way. However, the data on the number of lower-level incidents are much harder to come by. The best that the RSA is doing now is provisional data that is aggregated to the level of counties, which, let us face it, is of very little use to researchers looking at the safety of specific roads.

When accidents occur, we know that much data are collected by the Garda – GPRS, the type of road, the weather conditions and who was at fault. All of this would be immensely useful in locating black spots and making our roads safer.

The RSA used to share data on an online map up until 2016. It appears now to be using the excuse of the general data protection regulation, GDPR. We can all cite many examples of agencies that seem to want to hide behind GDPR when it suits them. However, this is the first situation I have come across where an agency in question is starting to use GDPR as an excuse two years before the GDPR came into effect.

In other jurisdictions, the data are available in a timely manner. Researchers can log on to the portal in the North, for example, and get figures for the last month. The same is the case in France, where GDPR applies. Therefore, clearly, the argument about GDPR just does not stack up. Meanwhile, I heard an example of one researcher who is trying to conduct a study using Irish data, but the latest they could find was from 2017 – six years out of date.

In March of last year, a spokesperson for the RSA told the Dublin Inquirer that the body was conducting an internal review on how GDPR impacted on how location data could be shared. We are still awaiting the outcome of that review 12 months later. It is five years since GDPR came into effect and seven years since the RSA started applying GDPR.

Dublin City Council requested the data on a number of collisions. Again, its committee was rebuffed. Even the National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland do not have access to the information. This is simply not acceptable when our transport system is in the middle of a crucial overhaul that we all agree has to happen in order for us to reach our emissions targets. It addition, it is something that we all want to happen in terms of the gridlock that we see in our city. If we want to design roads, cycling infrastructure and active transport, we have to have those data.

I looked at the parliamentary responses when this was queried previously. It seems to be the case that the Minister puts the blame back on the RSA to sort it out. It is not good enough. Under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, it is clear that the Minister has responsibility for this issue.

Will the Minister use the powers available to the Government to direct the RSA to publish and distribute the statistics about road safety that our researchers are crying out for and that are particularly relevant to the National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland?