Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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171. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he has read a recent paper (details supplied); if he accepts that the patchwork of primary and secondary legislation on road safety makes it too easy to challenge in the courts and harder for the authorities to enforce; if he will commit that the next legislation on road safety will be a road safety consolidation Act; and if he has discussed this with the Attorney General. [29838/24]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I am aware of the recent article referred to by the Deputy. The Deputy may also wish to note that the same publication subsequently published an update on progress made by my Department in the area of consolidation of the Roads Traffic Acts.

There is general agreement that the Road Traffic Acts, which date back to 1961 and have been amended on multiple occasions, are in need of consolidation. However, I am not aware of any case where an absence of consolidation per se has led to additional challenges and, most important in this context, I am not aware of any prosecution which has failed for want of consolidation. In fact it could equally be argued that the long standing nature of most of these provisions mean the law around them is settled and less open to experimental or novel arguments. The parameters of the various measures are well understood and initial exploration has been narrowed by Court decisions over time. There is significant authority from decisions of the Court of Appeal in particular, which offers guidance in this area and the legislation must be considered in conjunction with those authorities.

That said, we have committed in the Programme for Government to address consolidation. On coming into Government, we prioritised the need for urgent road traffic legislation in a number of areas, such as legalising electric scooters, and we have now dealt with this, as well as legislating for urgent road safety measures passed earlier this year in the Road Traffic Act 2024, which was 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 lacunae. 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 is well advanced. I anticipate that a project team will be in place in September of this year and will be working on bringing this project forward from its early preparatory stage.

The work on consolidation has been discussed between the LRC and the Attorney General and both are supportive of the project.

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 will take at least two years.