Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. Road safety is a topic about which we are all concerned. Unfortunately, there has been an increase in road fatalities in the past year. It is evident that the Minister of State is taking this seriously and wants to take action to address it. He will need the co-operation and support of Members across both Houses to bring about the change he is seeking.

There is an acknowledgment that rural roads account for a majority of fatalities, with seven out of ten occurring on rural roads with a speed limit of 80 km/h. There are a number of reasons for that. The quality of rural roads is not the same as that of motorways. There are more people and cars on the roads than ever before. More people are at work than ever before, with our economy doing so well. Cars have become faster. All of those factors are part of the picture as to why we are seeing an increase in fatalities and serious injuries. It is often not reported that for every fatality, there are an estimated eight collisions from which people emerge with serious or life-changing injuries. For those individuals, the journey to recovery is extremely traumatic and difficult. There is also an impact on families and communities. Road fatalities and serious injury from road accidents have a lasting impact not only on the individuals concerned but also on their families and everybody in their community.

We all want to tackle this and we must do so. We have an ambitious target to get to zero fatalities on our roads. It is achievable but it will require the use of technology and a change in policy. The Minister of State is keen to examine speed limits but colleagues have raised concerns about enforcement of existing limits. There is a perception, which may be right or wrong, that speed vans tend to operate in areas where it might be easy to catch motorists but not in areas where most accidents and difficulties occur. For example, we know the problems really do not lie with motorways, not that there are no challenges in that regard. Would the resources targeted at motorways, from the limited resources available, be better deployed elsewhere? There are measures being taken within the local authority system that work very well. The Minister of State might consider providing additional funding to local authorities for putting in speed limit enforcement and speed reduction measures. Such measures can be expensive in the context of a local authority budget but, for example, we know the flashing signs showing motorists' speed of travel work. We have the research and data showing they are very effective. Let us fund those types of measures and initiatives.

The plan is to reduce the 80 km/h zones to 60 km/h and the 100 km/h zones to 80 km/h, with discretion for local authorities to increase those limits locally. It is very unlikely a local authority will take such a decision for any road. If anything were to happen on a route where a decision was taken to increase the speed limit, the fear is that there would be blame laid and questions asked as to whether the local authority made the right move. Decisions like that come with a risk. Local authorities and elected members will be risk averse in those scenarios. We need to think about how this might work. The vast majority of motorists are good road users. They think of others and drive safely. A small minority of drivers are impacting on everybody else.

There might be work to be done in engaging with car manufacturing companies on how vehicles can be made safer. We could also look at best practice in other European countries as to how they deal with speeding and speed offences. It has been well documented that the use of mobile telephones and being under the influence of drugs or alcohol play a role in some of the accidents and fatalities we are seeing. We need to tackle that. The road traffic division of An Garda Síochána does a lot of work in that respect.

We all want to get more serious about this issue. The RSA probably needs additional resources to deal with it. There is a lot of work involved in its remit, including not just road safety but also driver testing and development of policy. If extra requirements are assigned to the authority, it is reasonable to suggest that extra resources be made available to meet those requirements. Similarly, if extra demands are made of local authorities, they must be adequately resourced to deliver those demands.If extra demands are being made of local authorities, they should be adequately resourced to deliver on what is being asked of them. Their staff will tell you their workload is considerable and they do not have the capacity to easily take on new roles. I wish the Minister of State well in his work. I am happy we have had this opportunity to have a debate on the issue. It is of interest to many Members and particularly in light of what happened over the summer. Every fatality is a tragedy for the families but there has been a spate of fatalities on our roads which have really shocked the country. These have happened in quick succession and a number of younger people and children have lost their lives. We have to try to get to the point where that does not happen. I thank the Minister of State for his time and I look forward to hearing his reply.