Road safety crisis
Deputy Cannon described the rise in road fatalities as a crisis and called for stronger enforcement and better crash data. The Tánaiste agreed there had been a worrying increase and referred to past reforms that reduced deaths; the Chair then moved them on.
Some 72 people have lost their lives on Irish roads so far this year. That is more than three people every week who have not arrived home safely to their families. This is a crisis. If we were losing three people a week on our rail or bus network, they would be shut down immediately until we had investigated why it was happening. We have a Road Safety Authority that has not shared crash location data for eight years. We had traffic light cameras that were working and we switched them off. We have just two average speed camera systems in operation across the whole country. We have asked gardaí to do half an hour of road safety enforcement every day when at the same time hundreds of citizens have nowhere to upload footage of violations. The Minister with responsibility is working really hard on this but he has to engage with the Road Safety Authority, An Garda Síochána, two Government Departments, and Transport Infrastructure Ireland. Will the Tánaiste and his colleagues in government please consider the appointment of a road safety commissioner with appropriate resources and powers and a singular focus of saving lives on Irish roads?
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. I fundamentally agree. We have all been shocked by the recent loss of life on our roads and concerned by the worrying increase in road fatalities after many years of progress in making our roads safer. I have always given great credit to the former Minister, Noel Dempsey, who took on a lot of opposition in the House when he brought in some fundamental measures recommended by the Road Safety Authority, which ultimately led to a substantial decline in road fatalities and injuries. Part of that was the whole drunk driving law phenomenon. People may look surprised but at the time there was a lot of opposition to all that. People are very taken aback post Covid that there has been an increase in the number of road fatalities and injuries. I would like to understand the Deputy's proposal in terms of a road safety commissioner vis-à-vis the Road Safety Authority and the relationship between the two, before I would commit to it.
