Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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148. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans on the consolidation of Road Traffic Acts; the proposed date for the consolidated Heads of Bill to be presented to the Dáil in 2024, as agreed at the Ministerial road safety committee meeting in November 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29455/24]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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It has long been agreed that the Road Traffic Acts, which date back to 1961 and have been amended on multiple occasions, are overdue for consolidation. For this reason, we committed to addressing this issue as part of the Programme for Government.

On coming into Government, we prioritised the need for urgent road traffic legislation in a number of areas, such as electric scooters, and we have now dealt with this, as well as legislating for urgent measures passed earlier this year in the Road Traffic Act 2024, brought forward in light of the recent rise in road deaths.

Consolidation is not a simple business. It will require careful consideration of the existing legislation, with identification and correction of any flaws. In recent months, my Department has been engaging with the Law Reform Commission (LRC), which has expert knowledge in this area, on how best to approach the project of consolidation. From this engagement, a scoping exercise is now complete and consideration of the resources needed for a projected team are well advanced, and I hope that a project team will be in place and beginning its work in September of this year.

As I have said, this is not a simple project, and it is important that we do it properly. It will not be clear until some way into the work whether there are substantial issues to be addressed, but at a conservative estimate the project would take at least two years.