Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is an opportune time to speak about this very important issue. Unfortunately, the reason we are bringing this to the fore in this Chamber is the serious number of road casualties on our roads this year. The Minister of State said there were 136 fatalities. I express my deepest condolences to those families and all the people who have lost their lives on the roads this year. I think of my friend Caroline White, who was killed by a drunk and reckless driver in 2000. There is barely a day when I do not think about her and the life she did not get the opportunity to live. We lost Caroline 23 years ago and I know it is exactly the same for many other people around the country. It is a desperate loss going into the winter with the long dark evenings, Christmas coming up and all the times they will think about their loved ones. I can only say that we will pray for them to get through this awful time.

As the Minister of State will be aware, road safety is not just about laws and regulations; it is also about saving lives and preventing unnecessary injuries. Every day, millions of people around the world get behind the wheel and, sadly, not all of them arrive home safely.We look at what are the challenges to road safety. The first, as we all know, is the increasing number of vehicles on our roads. Our population is growing. So is the number of cars, motor cycles and other vehicles. A greater number of road users leads to congested roads and increases the chances of accidents. More vehicles constantly on the road further add to challenges of road safety. When I was young, I would be able to sit in the middle of my road at home and play. There was never a car to be seen. Now one could not do that.

Another major challenge, as the Minister of State rightly mentions, is distracted driving. With our busy lives and the advent of smartphones, it is becoming more common for drivers to be engrossed in their devices and thinking about what they have to do ahead. Whether it is making calls, organising the next event or organising pick-ups for our children, we all have such busy lives but we all have to work carefully in making sure we do not use our phones when we are driving. That, as we know, takes the focus away from what one is doing and other road users and it cuts down on our reaction times.

Drunk driving and drug driving continue to pose a persistent challenge to road safety. Despite efforts to curb this dangerous behaviour - everybody knows it is wrong to drink and drive - as the Minister of State said, there is growing social acceptability that people can get behind the wheel and drunk-drive. It is crucial to strengthen those laws, to increase the enforcement and to implement educational campaigns to really discourage this behaviour and make it absolutely socially unacceptable.

Moving on to the infrastructure, we have had this conversation previously. There is, quite often, inadequate infrastructure. Infrastructure adds to road safety. Poorly maintained roads, the lack of street lights and the absence of proper signage all contribute to making our roads unsafe. It is an imperative for the Government and the local authorities to invest in upgrading our infrastructure to ensure safe road conditions for all.

On the increased traffic in my locality, we have the R173 moving onto the R175 and that is the main spine between Dundalk and Omeath, right to the Border in the Cooley Peninsula. It is a hugely busy road. It is a regional road, but with national route traffic, and we find it very difficult to get it upgraded to standard. It will cost a huge amount of money but I would like to have a mechanism for local authorities to work with the National Transport Authority when regional routes have a national route traffic volume to make sure that we have the best road safety measures, the best mitigation measures and a streamlined way of working through those speed limits. I hope the legislation the Minister of State is working through at present will help with that.

We cannot ignore the impact of reckless driving on road safety. Speeding, tailgating and disobeying traffic signals are only a few examples. We see the speeding. The Minister of State is dead right in saying that we have a huge amount of extra traffic cameras out on the roads. I am on the road quite often and I see them. One is more aware of them and prevention is so much better than cure. If people think there is a far greater chance of being caught speeding, they will reduce speed. We are all human and we will react to restrictions.

I would like to see training in school. I would like to see transition year module for road user safety, for driving experience. I think of a virtual driving school in Dundalk run by Mr. Paul Brady, which has a mobile simulator that can visit schools around the country. He has travelled all over Ireland bringing the skills in a safe way to young people and showing what speeding can do to people.

We have huge challenges. There are numerous complex measures to reduce casualties and injuries and accidents on the road. It will require a multifaceted cross-departmental approach including law enforcement, education and community participation and buy-in. We really must prioritise, and that is what the Government is doing. The Government is prioritising road safety and making sure it is our collective responsibility to make sure that everyone is safe on the road, there are more footpaths, safer roads, more cat's eyes on rural roads and a real focus on those regional roads with high traffic volume

I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, luck with his legislation and thank him for his time here today.