Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today, I bring the Road Traffic Bill 2024 before the House following its passage in Dáil Éireann on 6 March. The Road Traffic Bill 2024 is an urgent and essential part of the Government's response to the concerning trend of rising road fatalities and serious injuries. This is a short and focused Bill that aims to address issues with driver behaviours through legislative change. Ireland made great progress on road safety in the first 20 years of the millennium. In 1999, there were 413 deaths on Irish roads. In 2018, there were 134. However, the trend has since turned in the wrong direction. There were 187 deaths on our roads last year. As of today, 47 people have already died on our roads in 2024, an increase of seven on this date last year. The main factors fuelling this trend are driver behaviours, speeding, intoxicated driving and distracted driving. As we debate this Bill today, it is important we do not forget the families impacted by these behaviours and the lives that have been lost or changed. There is no acceptable level of death or serious injury on our roads. One life lost is one too many.

We are addressing this problem on a number of fronts. Most of all, I point to our multi-annual road safety strategy. It runs to 2030 and is divided into three phases. This year is the final year of the first phase. The Department will work with the Road Safety Authority and a wide range of stakeholders this year to develop an appropriate action plan for phase 2, which runs from 2025 to 2027. It is also important to have a proper level of enforcement of road traffic law. In this context, I welcome the fact that a 20% increase in GoSafe hours was announced by the Minister for Justice in September for the final quarter of last year, which has been extended to cover 2024. This will deliver 9,000 hours of monitoring a month, up from 7,500 hours before this increase. However, improving enforcement needs to be matched with ongoing legislative progress. This Bill will provide a number of measures which will target driver behaviours that cause or contribute to the worrying trends we are seeing.

This Bill will deal with three main issues: penalty points reform, mandatory drug testing and the implementation of key recommendations from the speed limit review. The Bill will also include a number of minor and technical amendments to existing legislation. In terms of penalty points reform, they were first introduced under the Road Traffic Act 2002. The primary purpose of penalty points is to encourage safer driving behaviour and to maintain vehicle roadworthiness. Once a fully disqualified driver reaches 12 points, they receive a driver disqualification. For novice drivers and learner permit holders, this threshold is reduced to seven penalty points. The Road Traffic Act 2002 specifies that when a person commits more than one penalty point offence on the same occasion, they will receive only one set of penalty points, which will be the highest or joint highest. The driver is still issued with all fixed charge notices for all offences detected. The Bill will amend the provisions surrounding multiple offence detection so that in the future, drivers detected committing more than one offence at once will receive multiple sets of penalty points. Following on from legal advice, the new system proposed in this Bill will work as follows. If a person pays for two fixed charges for offences arising out of the same occasion, they will get both sets of penalty points. If they pay more than two fixed charges, they will get two sets of points, which will be the highest or joint highest. If they are convicted in court of penalty points offences committed on the same occasion, they will get all sets of points involved. The parts of this system will work together. If, for example, a person gets five fixed charge notices for five offences on the same occasion, they might pay three but choose to go to court on two of them. In that case, they would get two sets of points out of the three fixed charges paid and both sets of points from court cases if they were convicted.

The second issue this Bill will address concerns drug-driving. Currently, under the Road Traffic Act 2010, members of An Garda Síochána may test drivers for drugs at the scene of serious collisions, whereas they are required to test for alcohol. This Bill will amend the existing provision, requiring members of An Garda Síochána to test for both alcohol and drugs at the scene of serious collisions. Research indicates that drug-driving is becoming more prevalent in our society. It is vital we have the necessary legislative tools at our disposal to remove people from our roads who drive under the influence of intoxicants.

The third issue the Bill will cover concerns speed limits. Last September, we published a speed limit review. The Bill will legislate to address the key recommendations it makes. The Bill will amend default speed limits from 50 km/h to 30 km/h for built-up areas, national secondary roads will go from 100 km/h to 80 km/h, and the speed limits on local rural roads will be reduced from 80 km/h to 60 km/h. It is important, to be clear, that these are changes to the legal default limits. The power of local authorities to make by-laws setting what are called "special speed limits" differing from the defaults is not affected by this legislation. It will continue to be the responsibility of local authorities to set appropriate speed limits for roads in their regions. The change I am proposing will not mean a blanket reduction of all speed limits on all roads but is a measured response to create a more sensible baseline. Following the passage of this Bill into law, guidelines will be issued to local authorities to conduct their own local speed limit reviews. I am aware of the Leas-Chathaoirleach's interests in the powers and responsibilities of councillors. This is an important, continued level of control and responsibility that councillors will receive in the context of road safety and transport policy in their local communities.

In addition to the above, this Bill will address a number of other legislative matters. At present, there are no penalty points for offences which, on conviction, carry a consequential - that is, an automatic - disqualification.Where convictions do not carry a consequential disqualification, the court still has the option of imposing what is called an ancillary disqualification. The Bill amends this provision such that penalty points will be applied in any case involving an ancillary disqualification of up to six months and will not be applied in cases involving an ancillary disqualification for more than six months. This will ensure that drivers will still receive penalty points if they are given a short ancillary disqualification. This is in response to a recent case where some people have avoided penalty points that would have brought them over the threshold for a six-month disqualification due to token ancillary disqualifications that could be for as little as a day.

A recent High Court case has raised a specific difficulty with the law on roadside testing for intoxicants. The difficulty is that when gardaí take a specimen of breath or oral fluid to test for alcohol or drugs, respectively, they currently have no explicit power to require the person to remain at the scene until the test produces a result. This is particularly important for drug tests, which take a few minutes to develop. Following legal advice and to provide swift clarity on this matter, my Department proposes that sections 9 and 10 of the 2010 Act be amended to create an explicit power to require a person to remain at the scene of a roadside drug test until a result is achieved. The maximum time a garda will be able to require someone to wait will be 30 minutes. This will allow for the fact that in on-the-ground situations, a garda may have to attend to other matters. As a consequence of introducing this new requirement to remain at the scene while a test is completed, we are also proposing to amend section 22 of the 2010 Act. This will allow for a defence of a special and substantial reason for refusing or failing to comply with the new requirement to remain at the scene.

The Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 contains provisions for a new class of vehicles called powered personal transporters, PPTs, which include e-scooters. The 2023 Act inserts a definition of PPTs into the Road Traffic Act 1961. This definition refers to parameters for weight, speed and power output. The 2023 Act also allows the Minister to vary these parameters for specific classes of PPTs. The intention was that the parameters in the Act would define a PPT, while regulations could then define specific types of PPTs by reference to lower weights, speed and power, as appropriate. Subsequent legal concerns have indicated that this ministerial power could be used to make any of the parameters higher than those in the Act, thereby changing the parameters approved by the Oireachtas. It is now proposed to remove this ministerial power, along with a cross-reference to it, to ensure the parameters passed by the Oireachtas are not bypassed. It is important to emphasise that this amendment does not change the actual parameters approved by the Oireachtas last year.

The Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 introduces new definitions for e-bikes. It has come to my Department's attention that under section 38 of the Road Traffic Act 1961, legislation requires that riders of certain types of e-bikes, classed as L1e-A e-bikes, would have to take a driving test and obtain a driving licence. This is not in accordance with policy and is not required by EU driver licensing law. My Department intends to amend section 38 in order that L1e-A e-bikes will not require a driving test or licence.

The Bill deals with a number of important issues that will make a real difference to road safety. It will encourage safer driving behaviours through the reformed penalty point system, mandatory drug testing and reduced speed limits. It is part of a multifaceted approach we are taking to improve road safety and reverse the trend we have witnessed in recent months and years.

I hope Members will appreciate the value of what we are doing here. I look forward to the debate and to hearing Senators' contributions. Everyone in this Chamber is a road user and a stakeholder in road safety. We all have an interest in safer roads and we share a responsibility to make them safer. I hope to see the Bill progressed as quickly as possible.