Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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538. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the actions he is taking to promote and assist advanced safe driving technologies in imported vehicles; if he will consider new regulations to facilitate advanced safe driving technologies in terms of road signage, safe road design and road maintenance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16423/19]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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All imported new vehicles are subject to Directive 2007/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council which established an approval system for vehicles within the EU.  This system ensures that a vehicle must be manufactured in compliance with a wide range of safety standards before it can be registered in the State and placed on the market.  This ‘type-approval’ system is periodically updated to account for improvements in safety standards and to allow advanced safety features be introduced as mandatory requirements.  Amendments to Directive 2007/46/EC are scrutinised, evaluated and voted upon by a number of different EU-level technical committees and working groups that are attended by representatives from the State.

Last week, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a provisional political agreement on a number of proposed amendments to the General Safety Regulation (Regulation (EC) No. 661/2009).  The proposed amendments will introduce a number of advanced safety systems that aim to reduce the number of fatalities and accidents on our roads and my Department welcomes and supports these measures.  The majority of these improvements will come into effect from 2022 and will be a mandatory element of the type-approval regime (i.e. introduced via the manufacturing of new vehicles).

Future technological advancements in vehicles may allow for the interaction of the vehicle with road infrastructure.  Insofar as the technology has been established for this, initial legislative measures have been developed at the appropriate international levels.  At present there are a number of challenges facing my Department (and indeed the wider European Union) in assessing the likely future path of technological development in relation to vehicles, systems and communications, before considering whether and how further significant new or amended legislation might be brought forward.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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539. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the steps he is taking to support a vision zero approach to road safety; his views on whether the European Commission proposals for advanced safe vehicle technologies in all new vehicles by 2022-2024 should be extended to the vehicle fleet here over the next three to five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16424/19]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The goal of the Government’s current Road Safety Strategy, which runs from 2013 to 2020, is to reduce deaths on our roads to an annual level of 124.  No one thinks this is easy, but at the same time we will never cease aspiring to achieve a complete end to the tragedy of unnecessary deaths on our roads.  Work to achieve our present target is continuing under the current Strategy, and in due course a successor strategy will be developed which I intend to see incorporate even more ambitious targets.

As the Deputy is aware, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union has reached a provisional agreement on a number of proposed amendments to the General Safety Regulation (Regulation (EC) No. 661/2009).  These amendments will introduce a range of new vehicle safety systems that will be a mandatory requirement for the manufacturing of new vehicles through the European Union’s Type-Approval regime.  The majority of these improvements will come into effect from 2022 and the regulations will apply in all European Union states including Ireland.