As recently as five years ago, Ireland was being celebrated within the EU for road safety following a reduction in fatalities of over 40% yet this week Ireland's road death toll hit 100 people, meaning the overall number is now 14% higher than last year and we are just over halfway through the year. The year 2024 is on course to prove the most lethal for traffic fatalities in 15 years.

My colleague here is from Waterford. A 70-year-old lady there, on Tuesday, was in collision with a lorry. It is happening in every constituency.

We need enforcement. Given the rise in fatal road traffic collisions, the force must continue to adapt its policing initiatives to increase safety on Irish roads. I acknowledge that a great deal of progress has been made via April's Road Traffic Act passing into law. This law saw an increased focus on Garda enforcement, with every uniformed officer now spending 30 minutes per shift on visible roads policing.

However, in my constituency alone, in the last week there was a three car accident at Bellurgan petrol station and an accident just before exit 17 northbound where a car and caravan hit each other causing significant damage. This is causing a lot of tragedy in local communities.

The three main challenges are speeding and drink and drug driving. This is a massive challenge of our time. Since 2019, people aged between 16 and 25 have represented 20% of all road deaths despite making up only 12% of the population. This trend is sadly continuing in 2024.

The reasons behind problematic behaviour in young drivers is quite complex and multifactorial. We must invest in a more evidence-based approach to understanding problematic driver behaviour and provide greater education through public awareness campaigns.

In addition to enforcement and reform of the driving testing regime, we need to invest seriously in infrastructure improvement. Is the RSA budget fit for purpose? Ms O'Donnell of the RSA certainly does not believe so. Ms O'Donnell says we need a lot more investment.

On the provision of crash data to the local authorities, are we giving them the information that they need to help with safety measures?

Driver behaviour needs to be challenged, both by education, engineering, enforcement and sanctions.

Will the Tánaiste liaise with the Minister for Transport to ensure adequate funding is provided to the RSA towards enforcement and towards research and education campaigns to reduce dangerous driving? For example, in 2006, the random checkpoints came in and it put the fear of God into everybody.

It worked. We need to put more initiatives in place. Every life lost on the roads is a tragedy.

I thank the Deputy for raising the very serious issue of road safety. We have all been shocked by the recent loss of life on our roads and concerned by the worrying increase in road fatalities. Some 188 road fatalities occurred in 2023. As of 11 July 2024, there have been 101 such fatalities, which is up by approximately 14 on the same period last year. We need a multifaceted response. We had far worse figures in the past. When Noel Dempsey was Minister with responsibility for this area, he set in train a dramatic series of proposals, with the establishment of the Road Safety Authority, which was chaired by the late Gay Byrne. It brought about a radical reduction in the loss of lives and rate of injury on our roads. The lesson from that is we can do it. If we rededicate ourselves and act proactively legislatively on the deterrents the Deputy suggested, and properly understand what is going on at present, we can deal with this and can get these numbers down. He mentioned speed, drink, drugs and behaviour. Those are issues that have to be tackled.

The Road Traffic Act 2024 was signed into law on 17 April. It dealt with three main issues: penalty point system reform; mandatory drug testing at the scene of serious collisions, which began on 31 May ahead of the June bank holiday; and the implementation of safer default speed limits as recommended by the speed limit review. It is expected that those measures will be introduced on local roads later this year. One of the challenges with road safety legislation and initiatives is, very often, they meet criticism or opposition on the ground. This has always been the challenge. We have to be very determined as a society about having to reduce the number of people, including children, being killed on our roads.

The development of the national road safety camera strategy will be an important step towards road safety. As part of the budget, funding has been made available for the GoSafe speed cameras, continuing the increased level of 9,000 hours of monitoring a month throughout the whole of 2024.

We all have a stake in this as citizens. We all have to watch our own behaviour. The uniformed members of An Garda Síochána now all carry out 30 minutes of high-visibility roads policing per shift. Last May, the Garda officially launched a system for identifying uninsured vehicles by scanning or entering the vehicle registration on the Garda mobility device. We will significantly increase spending on public awareness. Communication by the Road Safety Authority, as the Deputy said, is necessary. We will continue to support the authority. The forthcoming Estimates will reflect that.

Our roads are not safe. I ask the Tánaiste to please listen. Our footpaths are not safe. You cannot even go on a footpath now because of e-scooters and bicycles. Our loved ones are passing away. These are things that can be prevented. On behaviour, when the Tánaiste and I were children - we are roughly the same age - we could go out our front doors and play a bit of football on the streets. Those days are long gone. There is no respect any more.

We have to get enforcement and sanctions. The Garda plays a big part in that. I have lived in the Dundalk area for the past number of years. I do not know when I was last stopped at a checkpoint. I am lucky enough in that I do not drink, and I pay tax on my car and do not have a problem, but it seems enforcement has completely and utterly stopped. It is totally and utterly wrong. We need action. Children are going out at night-time. We all hope that they come home and there will not be a knock on the door with police coming to say something has happened to them. Prevention is the best cure. A lot of money is being invested at present in the roads, which have improved. However, we need to do something about drugs, speed and drink. The Garda has to play a big part in that. It is up to the Government and the Minister to get it done. I ask the Tánaiste to please help and stop all these young people dying.

Behaviour is at the centre of this. The Deputy referenced an earlier era, although we sometimes look back with rose-tinted glasses at the seventies and so on. More people were killed on our roads then, when there were far fewer cars, than today, which speaks to that era and its lack of proactive safety measures. That is why what we did in the late nineties and early 2000s in particular, when Noel Dempsey was Minister, had impact. We need to rediscover that.

There is a drugs issue. Deputy Chambers, when he was Minister of State at the Department of Transport, moved on that as regards mandatory drug testing. That is increasingly happening in parallel with alcohol, which is as prevalent an issue now as it was in earlier eras, and is impacting on road safety. All levels, including human behaviour, An Garda Síochána, strengthening the legislation on limits, and the national road safety camera framework and so forth, are required to get these numbers down. We will continue to work on that. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue.