Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the transport committee. I came today because I have specific questions as a road user and someone who is concerned about the numbers we are seeing. During the Saint Patrick's Day weekend, 175 people were arrested for drink driving; 1,800 people were detected speeding; 170 people were caught on their mobile phones; and someone was caught doing 209 km per hour in a 100 km per hour zone. Those are the figures that have been captured because this has been put under the microscope, but it is the longer term trends that are really worrying, if our fatalities have gone backwards to 2013 levels.

I have worked in the area of behavioural change and did so for many years. For figures as stark as that, we need consistent change and investment in behavioural change awareness campaigns. Enforcement plays an important role, as do the barriers. We have seen the Road Safety Authority, RSA, advertisements over the years and the impact they have made, but we live in a different era now. It is not only about traditional media. We need to be on social media connecting with people in our growing and changing population. As someone who has worked in the area of behavioural change and advertising and marketing, I can say that we need a new strategy when it comes to road safety. We need a hard-hitting approach to this. I commend the Minister of State on taking this on. Given the urgency, he needs to be relentless about his pursuit of changing the direction of those statistics which I feel he is.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister of State. I hope he does not mind. He will recognise some of the areas I will raise, for instance Porterstown Road, which is designated as a rural road. It is in a semi-rural area and the speed limit on it is 60 km per hour. According to this Bill, the Government has looked at mandatory drug testing, changes to speed limits and penalty points.I see there have been changes with regard to rural areas, where the speed limit is going to go from 100 km/h to 80 km/h. We are then looking at it going from 80 km/h to 60 km/h. What about somewhere like Porterstown Road? It is a rural area and in the LEADER programme, and we are very pleased to see it there. It also has, however, very narrow footpaths and major footfall from people going to Somerton Park, the Castleknock Hotel, Porterstown Park and St. Mochta's Church. Recently, we have seen Porterstown Park being used for doing doughnuts, circles and speeding of this type. I have spent years trying to change the speed limit on Porterstown Road to 50 km/h. This would enable more speed measures to be implemented and would be a good step forward.

The second issue I wish to raise concerns Littlepace. Speed surveys have been done there as well. It is a 60 km/h area. We know there is a great deal of speeding on those roads, particularly at night time, with car meet-ups being advertised on social media. Cars meet up on the M3 and then go around the back roads in Littlepace. A new town is to be developed at Confey, beside Leixlip. This will come on top of new developments in Barnwell, Kellystown and all these areas. What plans are in place to ensure road safety for car users, cyclists and pedestrians and to address future congestion? The Phoenix Park is another example in this regard. There is a 30 km/h speed limit in the park but very few people actually abide by and agree with it. It is one of the locations where people are travelling faster than 30 km/h and it is causing issues. I wished to mention those examples.

I also wish to raise the issue of statistics. The Bill digest we have been provided with states that Ireland in 2022 was comparable with the UK, and other places like Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and Finland, in respect of road mortality rates below 35 deaths per million inhabitants. There is a big difference, however, between us and the UK. In that country, there are specialist, consultant-led helicopter-borne emergency medical teams. Those helicopters go to the scene of an injury and their crews are able to conduct advanced resuscitation of sick or injured patients. They provide on-site resuscitation, open heart surgery, advanced pre-hospital anaesthesia and critical care invasive medical resuscitation. It has been said that one in four people who have been injured in situations where that kind of care is not available could die. This means an extremely large number of people could be saved with that level of emergency care.

I wonder, then, how we measure our statistics compared with countries like the UK and where we are in respect of the provision of this kind of emergency critical care. I ask this because it makes sense to me, in this day and age, that if there is an impact or collision and this level of trauma is involved, a helicopter like the one that operates out of the North could go to the scene. It is like bringing the hospital to the scene, rather than bringing people to the hospital. Has any thought been given to looking at the introduction of this kind of emergency care in Ireland? It would be hugely positive if this kind of care were available here. Another option would be for us to engage through the North-South Ministerial Council to examine the experience with this type of care in the North.

I again commend the Minister of State for making this matter a priority. It must be one because bringing about behavioural change of this type is not a straightforward process. It demands more than this Bill, but this legislation is very helpful in its provisions. It is about connecting with people regarding the consequences of poor driver behaviour and ensuring we have the enforcement provisions in place to deal with such behaviour. We are all aligned on this issue and in violent agreement that these trends cannot continue.