Apologies have been received from Senator Imelda Goldsboro. I acknowledge also that Deputy Paul Donnelly is deputising for Deputy Pa Daly.

I welcome everyone to the meeting. Today's engagement marks the commencement of a focused and structured programme of committee work around road safety. We meet at a time when the most recent figures show that 190 precious lives were lost on Irish roads last year. These figures confirm a continued and deeply concerning rise in road fatalities, which is an erosion of the good progress that was made prior to and during Covid. Subsequently, there has been a continued rise in serious injuries as well, including pedestrians, cyclists and other road users. Every fatality represents a life lost, a family devastated and a community changed forever. These trends, despite the existence of a national road safety strategy and the Vision Zero commitment, demand serious scrutiny and a renewed focus on outcomes rather than intentions.

The purpose of today's session is to hear directly from organisations representing vulnerable road users, those who face the greatest risk on our roads but pose the least risk to others. Their evidence this morning will inform the committee's examination of why progress has stalled, where delivery is falling short and what practical evidence-based measures can be implemented to reverse current trends. The committee is particularly interested in concrete proposals that can be acted upon in the short and medium term, including in the areas of speed management, enforcement capacity, infrastructure design, data gaps and legislative shortcomings. This engagement is the first step in a wider programme that will lead to a substantive committee report with clear recommendations to the Government and relevant agencies.

I am delighted to welcome Age Friendly Ireland, Cycling Ireland, the Dublin Commuter Coalition and the Irish Cycling Campaign. On behalf of Age Friendly Ireland, I am delighted to welcome Dr. Emer Coveney, national programme manager, and Ms Catherine McGuigan, chief officer. From Cycling Ireland, I welcome Mr. Ciarán Cannon, president, and Mr. James Quilligan, chief executive officer. From the Dublin Commuter Coalition, we have Mr. Jason Cullen, chair, and Mr. John Quigley, committee member. Finally, from the Irish Cycling Campaign, I welcome Ms Neasa Bheilbigh - I hope that pronunciation is correct - who is the chair, and Mr. Damien Ó Tuama, the national cycling co-ordinator.

Before we begin, I have some notes on privilege for the attention of the witnesses. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed to discontinue their remarks. I ask that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses, or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirements that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask members participating via MS Teams that, prior to making a contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

I now invite Ms McGuigan to make her opening statement on behalf of Age Friendly Ireland.

I am the chief officer of the Age Friendly Ireland shared service hosted in Meath County Council on behalf of the local government sector. I am accompanied by Dr. Emer Coveney, national programme manager of Age Friendly Ireland.

I would like to start by thanking the committee members for their invitation today. We look forward to assisting the committee in its important deliberations on road safety, particularly in relation to older people.

Age Friendly Ireland is a national shared service in the local government sector hosted by Meath County Council. The national office provides the structure and framework for a multi-agency strategic response to population ageing and demographic change, aligned to the World Health Organization’s global framework for developing age-friendly cities and communities. All 31 local authorities work under a memorandum of understanding with the shared service to deliver a local age-friendly programme and a strategic plan in every administrative area. In each of the local authorities, the operational structure consists of a strategic multi-sectoral age-friendly alliance chaired by the chief executive of the local authority with the resources of a local age-friendly programme manager, an age-friendly technical adviser, a healthy-age-friendly homes co-ordinator, an interdepartmental team and, fundamentally, an older people's council, OPC. Our programme of work is heavily reliant on citizen participation and anchored in the principles of collaboration, partnership and co-design. Older people’s councils are established at national and local level to represent the voice of older people from diverse communities and to ensure their views feed into national and local policy service provision.

Older people are not a homogenous group and it is essential the challenges we face as we age across the life course are represented authentically. Our ethos is anchored in the global statement that when you design for older people you include people of all ages and abilities across the life course. In doing so, you adopt a universal perspective. The contributions we will make today are informed by regular consultation with older people’s council members and specifically in relation to road safety through a dedicated transport working group under the national network of older people’s councils. The National Transport Authority, An Garda Síochána and the Road Safety Authority participate in this working group. In 2025, we held two special consultations with older people on road safety at the request of An Garda Síochána. Road Safety continues to be a high priority for older people.

Older people consulted by Age Friendly Ireland are very aware of the risks related to road safety. In relation to their own driving, many limit their journeys in later years. For instance, some only use the car for short, local journeys, or do not drive at nighttime. This is a sensible approach, from their perspective, to risk mitigation. Key road safety issues that have been identified by older people through consultation, not only as drivers but particularly as pedestrians and cyclists, include the following. The increased use of e-scooters poses a particular risk to older pedestrians due to their speed, lack of sound and perhaps inappropriate use on footpaths. Traffic-light timings at pedestrian crossings do not always allow sufficient time for an older person to safely cross the road. While we have seen great progress in the built environment in recent times, there remains a need to invest further in footpaths and safe walking-routes in rural towns and villages specifically, to address legacy and historical issues. There are feelings of insecurity around cars travelling at speed on back roads in rural areas, as a way of bypassing towns. Overgrown hedges can sometimes impact on the visibility of road signage. Absent or faded road line markings and signage can impact on safe driving practices. Older people have reported difficulty in negotiating uneven footpaths and high kerbs, however, many of these issues can be mitigated through community engagement in our age-friendly walkability audits.

The Local Link service has been a lifeline for older people particularly those in rural areas, however, there remains a dearth in some rural areas. In addition, older people have highlighted that public service bus schedules do not always operate in a timely fashion forcing older people to rely on cars or lifts for appointments and activities of daily living. Older people's preference is to use public transport if it was more widely and freely available.

Local age-friendly programmes have implemented initiatives that provide walkable streets, housing and transportation options, access to key services and opportunities for older people to participate in community activities. By doing so, these communities are better equipped to become great places for older people and people of all ages. In our 2025 data returns we rolled out an additional 510 age-friendly parking spaces, conducted 46 age-friendly walkability audits, and have over 70 age-friendly town processes at various levels of development across Ireland. Under our national technical programme, specific actions are being delivered in partnership with Irish Rail to implement age-friendly train stations and with a number of other partners to implement the age-friendly process around the overall built environment. We have provided CPD-accredited age-friendly technical training to thousands of practitioners such as public sector architects, planners and engineers across Ireland to incorporate age-friendly design principles into the delivery of public realm, housing and infrastructure contributing to the overall safety of older people in our communities. We continue to carry out extensive consultation on transportation issues, and work with key personnel and agencies in An Garda Síochána, the Road Safety Authority, and the Department of Transport in relation to planning. We also work with Bus Éireann, the National Transport Authority and others relative to improving the safety of older people as drivers, road users, pedestrians and general road users.

Public transport has improved significantly in recent years, with increased Local Link bus routes, accessibility improvements to fleet with NTA capital funding programmes, including age-friendly design principles, and greater attention to the needs of our ageing population in route planning. Community car schemes are operating in a number of areas as well as some age-friendly programme areas having special bus services for hospital and medical appointments. Local age-friendly programmes in a number of counties held large-scale road-safety events for older people in recent years. In 2025, Cavan and Mayo county councils hosted road safety information events, engaging with An Garda Síochána and the Road Safety Authority while hundreds of older people were in attendance. On the success of that, this year, Age Friendly Ireland will adopt a regional approach to delivering these road safety events for older people in partnership with the local age-friendly programme and other stakeholders. There is a plethora of other local initiatives rolling out that provide opportunities for older people to participate safely and securely. However, transportation, and by virtue of that, road safety, is the catalyst to meaningful participation and is crucial to the work we continue to do.

In conclusion, building on the success of what we have achieved to date, the following solutions have been proposed by members of our older people’s councils to improve road safety for older people. It is proposed that members of our older people’s councils engage with local road safety committees; that members of our OPCs would be on local community safety partnerships - and that is happening in many areas; and road safety roadshows be delivered in local communities as I referenced earlier, and we will role those out this year. Also proposed was the importance of changing the culture about wearing hi-vis vests for pedestrians across all age groups with potential to distribute hi-vis vests to older people through pharmacies, primary care centres, GP surgeries, libraries and others; a real focus on the importance of maintenance of the road network and footpaths; campaigns to focus on changing the culture of driver behaviour, with the participation of older people in the messaging; a stronger presence and messaging in schools with opportunities for older people as volunteers to support students with the driver theory testing, accompanied driving for learner drivers and others such like; continued scale up of the age-friendly towns and walkability audits providing the opportunity for consultation with older people and people with disabilities on location of pedestrian crossings, timing of lights, speed limits and reduced speed zones; and a revival of the green cross code for children and adults. I thank the committee members for the opportunity to participate today.

I thank the committee members for this opportunity to contribute to its very important policy formation process on the whole issue of road safety. I am joined by the CEO of Cycling Ireland, James Quilligan and we represent the 25,000 members of Cycling Ireland, people of all ages and abilities who cycle on Irish roads every day.

For many years now, people walking and cycling have accounted for around 40% of all road deaths and serious injuries in Ireland. Those who pose the least danger on our roads are paying the highest price. This is not an unavoidable toll of modern life; it is the predictable result of policy choices. In 2004, many of us will recall when the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, introduced the workplace smoking ban he faced fierce opposition. He acted decisively, was backed by the evidence and by health professionals, and that courage saved lives and is saving lives to this day. The evidence on how to save lives on Irish roads is just as clear. What we are missing is that same level of courage. Ireland has committed to Vision Zero, yet, we are moving in the wrong direction. With a target of 72 deaths a year by 2030, this is not a marginal failure; it is a systemic one. There are four proven actions we believe will help to save lives if we choose to implement them. First, road safety in Ireland has no single owner. Responsibility is fragmented across Departments, local authorities, An Garda Síochána and State agencies.

We urgently need a fully independent road safety commissioner, with legislative authority and the resources to co-ordinate action, demand delivery and hold failure to account. The cost of road collisions in Ireland is estimated at €1.4 billion annually. A tiny fraction of that would fund this role. Looking back at the history of the creation of similar roles, we have created independent bodies to confront major public policy challenges, from mental health to policing to healthcare quality and even, quite rightly, strengthening and developing the Irish language. The absence of an equivalent role for road safety, despite hundreds of preventable deaths, highlights a clear opportunity to place road safety where it belongs, at the centre of national oversight, accountability and action.

Second, we must implement the default 30 km/h urban speed limit without delay. The physics are stark. I am recalling Ms McGuigan's contribution as it applies to elderly people. At 30 km/h, around one in ten pedestrians will die if struck by a vehicle. At 50 km/h, half will die. At 60 km/h, death is almost certain. That is why the Department of Transport's own speed limit review recommended a default 30 km/h speed limit in towns and cities. Instead, rather than doing that, responsibility has been pushed onto local authorities through piecemeal by-laws, a process that will take years to conclude and deliver absolute inconsistency of approach.

Elsewhere, internationally, decisive action has saved lives. Wales imposed a 30km/h speed limit across all its towns and villages and in one year recorded a 28% reduction in road casualties. London cut deaths and serious injuries by a third and child deaths by 70%. Helsinki, roughly the same size of Dublin, went a whole year without a single road death. Ireland passed the law for a default 30 km/h urban speed limit in 2024. Nothing prevents full implementation of that law right now except political will.

Third, we must fully restore and properly resource our dedicated roads policing. Enforcement works but only when it is visible and relentless. In 2009, more than 1,000 gardaí were assigned to roads policing in this country. Today, there are just over 600. The Minister, Deputy Jack Chambers, who formerly had responsibility for road safety, described that as a collapse, which was the word he chose to use, in roads policing. Occasional holiday crackdowns do not change behaviour. They tell drivers enforcement is temporary. If we are serious about saving lives, roads policing must be treated as a core pillar of road safety, not an optional extra.

Fourth, we must rapidly scale up automated enforcement to assist the gardaí in their work. It is life-saving infrastructure. Ireland has just nine static speed cameras nationwide. Lithuania, with half our population, has 400. The NTA tells us in a report it drafted that average-speed cameras cut fatal and serious injuries by 50%. Ireland has just five such speed camera systems. In a recent parliamentary question submitted by the committee's Cathaoirleach, Deputy Michael Murphy, the Minister for justice confirmed that despite adding 390 new speed camera zones, not one additional mobile camera or hour of monitoring is being provided. At this point, inaction on cameras is not neutral. It is measured every day in lives lost.

In summary, what we need now is clear leadership, lower speeds urgently, consistent enforcement, and automation to assist in that enforcement where it is shown to work successfully internationally. We constantly use the phrase Vision Zero. It is something we all aspire to but it is not a slogan. It is a test of whether we value human life more than political comfort. The evidence is clear. Those 190 deaths last year were, in the main, preventable. That is what we must work towards.

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to speak today on the topic of road safety. My name is Jason Cullen. I am the chairperson of Dublin Commuter Coalition. I am joined today by John Quigley, a member of our committee. Forgive me if there is a bit of repetition in this speech. I believe my colleagues from the other representative organisations have similar concerns to raise as we do.

The Dublin Commuter Coalition is a voluntary advocacy group established in 2018 to act as a unifying voice for sustainable transport users in the greater Dublin area. Despite our name, we do not just advocate for commuters but for everyone in the greater Dublin area who walks, cycles or uses public transport. Our vision is for Dublin to have a well-connected transport network that is safe, accessible, reliable, and sustainable, and we believe our preferred policies benefit all transport users, including drivers.

The first major issue we would like to address is the failing of Vision Zero, the Government's road safety strategy, which aims to halve serious injuries and road deaths by 2030. Not only have the responsible agencies failed to meet their first milestone, of 122 road deaths in 2024, deaths have actually increased in every single year bar one since the strategy was adopted. Perhaps most worryingly, vulnerable road user deaths have increased significantly in the last 12 months, despite only a marginal increase in the overall number of people who lost their lives on the roads. This in itself is an unforgivable failure, made only worse when considering that the funding commitment for phase 1 of Vision Zero was €3.8 billion. Serious questions need to be raised about what that massive amount of public money has actually accomplished outside of more seriously injured and dead people on Irish roads. Unsurprisingly, there are no hard targets in phase 2 but collectively we are still aiming to reduce road deaths by 118 annually in just three and half years. Even at this point, a number of the actions within phase 2 have already been rolled back on by this Government, so we have just about as much confidence in it succeeding as the preceding phase.

The second major issue we would like to highlight is the continued shortcomings of the Road Safety Authority. Serious injuries on Irish roads doubled in the past decade and road deaths have hit a modern record high. It is also widely reported that it struggled to carry out the duties of car testing and driver licensing in a timely manner as well. The Indecon report generated during the lifetime of the last Government laid out quite clearly all of the reasons that reform of the RSA is required. It is an agency that generates its funding from increasing the number of cars on our road, and as such, it has a conflict in undertaking its road safety campaigns. Its unsustainable funding already has an annual deficit of €20 million, and that is expected to rise to €45 million by 2033. The RSA does not have any engineering or road design employees and so lacks the expertise to advise and train those entities or elected representatives, such as members of the committee, empowered make our roads safer. Almost a decade on, the GDPR issue about sharing local data with local authorities persists and so none of the little information the RSA has could have been acted on by local authorities since 2016. Only a small handful of the RSA's staff are actually tasked with road safety promotion, education and research.

Two years ago, 34 campaign groups, including us, came together to declare no confidence in the Road Safety Authority. Both a plan and iron-clad commitment to reform the RSA were then passed but have since been rescinded by the current Minister of State with responsibility for road safety, citing cost as the reason for, may I remind members, an entity that is already €20 million in the hole each year, and getting worse.

As members may know, Love 30 is a national campaign for safe road speeds in residential and urban areas. Legislation enabling the Minister of the day to set default speed limits was passed by the previous Dáil and was recently used to reduce 120 km/h road speeds last year. The reason this campaign is such an important one for road safety is due to the outcomes of road traffic collisions. A person struck by a vehicle at 30 km/h has a nine in ten chance of survival, as opposed to one in ten if hit at 60 km/h. This single change would have a massive impact on reducing road deaths, and it is in the Minister’s remit to do so at the stroke of a pen but he has decided that each council is to conduct its own road review by mid-2027 and is instructed to reduce road speeds. Recently, we gave a presentation about road safety here in the audiovisual room of Leinster House, which some members attended, along with one of the Minister of State, Deputy Canney's, representatives. When I pushed for the position of the Minister regarding the likelihood that this U-turn would lead to increased, shockingly, the response we got back was that it would be regrettable.

What is truly regrettable is that we have to sit in this room in the wake of 190 deaths on our roads last year and discuss the reasons why. The reasons are very simple. The agencies responsible for road safety are focused on the wrong things. The bodies overseeing them cannot or in some cases do not hold them to account. The Minister of State with responsibility for road safety is rolling back evidence-based commitments for reform. Unfortunately, it is members' constituents paying the price for these failures with their lives, and it is breaking the hearts of the communities that experience these tragedies on an almost daily basis.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus le baill an choiste as an deis a thabhairt dúinn labhairt leo inniu. I am joined by our national cycling co-ordinator, Dr. Damien Ó Tuama.

The Irish Cycling Campaign represents people across Ireland who use a bicycle as a mode of transport and people who would like to cycle but currently do not feel safe. We are a national organisation with volunteers working through 20 local groups across urban and rural Ireland. We are Ireland’s member of the European Cyclists Federation.

Our members reflect the diversity of Irish society: children travelling to school, adults commuting to work, older people maintaining independence and people in rural communities where transport choices are limited. We advocate for the safety of all road users, with particular focus on those most vulnerable, namely, children, older people, pedestrians, cyclists and people with disabilities.

Road danger reduction should be treated as a public health issue. A safe systems approach is based on a simple principle: people will make mistakes but those mistakes should not result in death or life-changing injury. Responsibility therefore lies primarily with those who design, manage and enforce the road system.

A key element of this approach is recognition of the hierarchy of road users whereby those who pose the greatest risk carry the greatest responsibility while those most at risk of harm must receive the greatest protection. This principle underpins international best practice and Ireland’s road safety strategy.

Infrastructure is central to building a safe system. We must design danger out of our roads. Vulnerable road users are sharing space with vehicles that are increasingly larger and heavier and more dangerous for those outside the vehicle. Design should do the work of safety. That means protected cycling infrastructure, safe crossings and street layouts that make dangerous speeds impossible, not merely illegal.

The step change in active travel funding over recent years is beginning to deliver high-quality cycling networks. However, additional funding is needed to meet inflationary pressures, which are delaying delivery of planned schemes. It is essential that completing these safe urban networks remains a priority for this Government.

This applies equally in rural Ireland. High-quality segregated greenways are not recreational luxuries. They enable safe travel for children, older people and those who cannot drive. They connect villages to schools, shops and public transport, reducing isolation and supporting local economies. They should be recognised as an essential part of our health and transport infrastructure and must be able to extend beyond State land if they are to properly serve our communities.

Enforcement is essential if road safety laws are to save lives. Both An Garda Síochána and the Courts Service require sustained resourcing to address road traffic offences at scale. Without visible and consistent enforcement, speed limits and traffic laws lose credibility.

International evidence shows that speed cameras and red-light cameras reduce collisions and lead to lasting behaviour change. These systems operate continuously and do not divert members of the Garda from other front-line duties. Their delayed roll-out in Ireland is a serious weakness.

Speed is the single most important factor in determining whether a collision results in death or serious injury. Our colleagues have already outlined the statistics on this so I will not repeat them. That is why we urgently need national leadership and the immediate roll-out of a default 30 km/h speed limit in built-up areas, as already legislated for and recommended by the 2023 expert speed limit review. This is not radical; it is standard practice across much of Europe. Reversing this commitment puts lives at unnecessary risk.

Finally, road danger reduction requires clear national leadership and co-ordination across transport, justice, health and local government. Whatever form this leadership takes, it should be consistent, evidence-based and empowered to prioritise safety. Road deaths and serious injuries are not abstract. As parents and carers we see how safe routes benefit wider society and create healthier, more sustainable, connected and equitable communities. We need our rural and urban roads made safe for everyone. The Irish Cycling Campaign urges the committee to recommend the full embedment of a safe systems approach with an evidence-led, public-health approach to road safety. Please ensure that proven, life-saving measures are implemented urgently and consistently. Road deaths are not accidents; they are predictable and preventable.

I thank Ms Bheilbigh. I will now go to our members for questions. I ask them to direct their questions to particular witnesses given that we have four representative bodies here today and two witnesses on behalf of each. Deputy Crowe is first.

I thank everyone for their attendance today. In particular I welcome back Mr. Cannon who is most familiar with this place. I have quite a bit I want to get through so I will jump straight in.

I want to take up form where Ms Bheilbigh left off. She said road deaths are not abstract. That is certainly true. My mother-in-law was one of the 190 killed last year. A split-second can change a life. We are like so many families. There is so much bad news on the radio and TV these days you just zone out when you hear about a murder, house fire, road traffic accident but when it hits home you very much tune in. You find yourself reading into these families, going on rip.ie and posting condolences for people on the other end of the country who you do not even know. A split-second can change a family’s life entirely and it stays with them for a long, long time.

I cycled this morning. I came up on the 7.30 a.m. train from Limerick. It is a habit I have got into and a great way to wake up and get here punctually. It is far better than the car. Just this morning there was a very hairy incident on Arran Quay where all these cyclists are coming in from Heuston Station along the quays and suddenly they have to switch across three lanes to cross over. A taxi nearly put someone flying this morning. There is something else I have noticed. I fell last year outside Trinity College here in Dublin where there is no cycle lane so you have to interface with the Luas system for 200 m or 300 m before you can get back into a cycle lane. I find it unfathomable that 22 years after the Luas came here, we do not have these rubber flange fillers that so many European countries have. They have them in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Japan. They have them all over the world yet cyclists have to cross the tracks at precarious angles. If your wheel somehow gets stuck you are locked into it and thrown off and there is probably a double-decker bus coming behind you. I want to begin from that point.

This is for some of the cycling people here. Where infrastructure does exist – because it does exist here in this city whereas it does not exist as much for the rural county I represent – is it properly maintained? Is there silt, gravel, sunken manholes and all these issues things cyclists have to contend with as they try to get to and from work or school? That is for Mr. Ó Tuama.

I thank Deputy Crowe for the question. Broadly we are seeing an improvement in the roll-out of the five metropolitan cycle networks and equally in some of the towns. Maintenance is absolutely crucial. It is improving in some local authorities but it is essential that the budget and commitment is there to make sure that what is an improving cycle network is properly maintained.

The interaction between people on bicycles and trams can be difficult. The rubber flanges can be useful. They tend to get torn up on tight corners. It is part of a broader high-quality provision of infrastructure where you are thinking of people on bikes interacting with trams and tram tracks.

On a day where the Cabinet is discussing e-scooters and scramblers again, is it right that cyclists should be interfacing with e-scooters and powered bikes as well in cycle lanes?

I will take that one. At the moment there is probably a bit of a conflation between what a pedelec and e-bike is, which is what I cycle my children to school in. It has a top speed of 25 km/h and it cuts out straight away. You are not going to go faster than that with two kids on board especially.

E-scooters are meant to have a top speed of 20 km/h. That is the legal limit. Anything else is illegal on our roads. Any of the electric bikes that exceed 25 km/h are not meant to be on our cycle lanes. They are meant to be insured, registered and taxed and riders are meant to wear a motorcycle helmet because they are going up to speeds of up to 50 km/h. There was one in front of me tearing up the hill ahead of me yesterday. They are not the same vehicle. They are a completely different beast to the regular e-scooter.

They are faster than the cars going through the city.

Yes. Absolutely.

I am just conscious of my time. I want to get a couple of questions into Mr. Cannon, if Ms Bheilbigh will forgive me.

A couple of years ago, this committee in the previous Dáil, travelled to Rotterdam and met the Dutch Cycling Embassy there. They showed us incredible stuff and we were filled with ideas. At the end, we asked how they managed to develop all this infrastructure and the person kind of rolled his eyes to heaven and said, "Our city was carpet bombed. We were able to start from scratch in the 1950s.

On a serious note, we are trying to shoehorn all this infrastructure into city streets which have not changed in a couple of hundred years. Some of our county towns are still in the medieval layout. Can we wedge that infrastructure in? We have all these national guidelines saying a footpath must be 1.8 m wide and cannot be compromised or a cycle lane must be such and such, and it becomes a point of conflict.

In his former life, I think Mr. Cannon was a planning official with a local authority. There are best practice guidelines, there is what should happen with road safety and there is the practicality of it. How does all that work?

Finally, Mr. Cannon might address the whole issue of the road safety commissioner. I like the idea of it but it is possibly more duplication. There seems to be a lot of agencies. Our local authority members in Clare were recently trying to change a speed limit in Darragh in Ennis. Local authorities have said they cannot do it because there is no point producing a speed limit unless you modify the road. Modifying the road could cost €1.2 million and could take two years to do.

How do we strike the right balance here?

I thank Deputy Crowe for that.

On the first question, if you look at cities like London, Paris and those the Deputy has referred to which have had a long history of providing excellent cycling and active travel infrastructure, they found a way of making it happen. It is all about culture and assuming each person on a street or on a road, be it in a rural town or in a large city, has an equal right and entitlement to travel safely on that road.

We need to start from there. If you start from there, you see the world in a completely different way. If you look at what Mayor Anne Hidalgo in Paris has done in the past five years, or if you look at what Sadiq Khan has been doing over the past seven or eight years, they are doing incredible work in creating that safe space, and people are responding.

There is a phenomenal behavioural psychologist called Ian Walker from the UK, who has actually presented to this committee in the past. Once you provide people with a safe, efficient and reliable way of getting from home to work, college or school, they will use the opportunity that presents best to them. Professor Walker made the case that if you were living in suburban Dublin, and there was a Luas stop outside your door, you would use the Luas. If there was a bus stop outside your door, you would use the bus. If there was a segregated cycle lane outside your door, you would use that segregated cycle lane.

I call Deputy Moynihan. Apologies, Deputy Currie. I will pay for that one.

No, you will not.

I will get brownie points for that.

I thank everyone for being here today. What brings us together is a recognition that we are not meeting our own road safety commitments and we are seeing a deterioration of behaviour on our roads, more risk taking and speeding. At the same time, we are not keeping pace with the changing reality happening on our roads, as well as pressures on enforcement, infrastructure, more active travel - which is positive - and new vehicle types.

There is a loss of confidence in our road safety enforcement and safety. I am interested in Cycling Ireland's call for a road safety commissioner, which Mr. Cannon has proposed before. He argued for a single individual and an office that would be properly resourced and empowered to bring coherence and accountability to our road safety governance.

What has changed is the urgency but I also question if it is enough and if it can be done quick enough. Being part of this committee for the past year, I see good laws are being introduced but not implemented. Fixed charge notices and illegal number plates were brought up at this committee. For two years, it was not implemented. We are seeing driver numbers not being collected through the court system that are then not matched to the national vehicle and driver file. There are then question marks over the integrity of our national database for disqualified drivers and for penalty points.

We are seeing scrambler legislation, e-scooter legislation and question marks over the effectiveness of the enforcement. When you read through the road safety strategy, 1,000 km of segregated cycling and walking facilities were supposed to be implemented by 2025. We are nowhere near that. We would also benefit, and I want the witnesses to think about this, from a cross-agency cross-departmental unit within the Department of the Taoiseach, like we have seen with the likes of the child poverty unit. The reason for that is it could drive cross-governmental action and would break down the silos we are seeing, where it is just too easy for somebody else to take responsibility. We are also missing accountability when it comes to where we are with fatalities on our roads.

Could the witnesses look at a road safety commissioner whose role would be to oversee implementation? We have some good laws and strategies but we need some joined-up thinking to implement them across agencies, Departments and local authorities, while also giving the witnesses a voice in that. What do the witnesses think of that?

First, that cross-departmental approach is already in existence. It resides in the Department of Transport. They meet every quarter or so, and bring together all the entities the Deputy has already described. However, that is not enough. I would argue that if we are deadly serious about reducing the number of tragic road deaths so that people do not have to get that knock on their door to hear their son or daughter is never coming home again, we need to assign increased and added urgency to this. It should reside with the Department of the Taoiseach more so than in the Department of Transport.

One example which really shows the need for a fully independent road safety commissioner with the legislative authority and resources to make a difference, to call out inaction and to look for accountability, as Ms Bheilbigh already has outlined, was the road speed limit safety review. One of the entities which formed part of that was the Road Safety Authority. One of the overarching conclusions of that speed limit review group was an immediate urban default speed limit of 30 km/h. Only months later, that idea was abandoned, it is now being pushed out and God knows how long it will take. The Road Safety Authority did not utter a single word in the wake of that announcement despite being a constituent of the review which came up with the conclusion and being the body responsible for road safety here in Ireland. The Road Safety Authority either feels it does not have the authority, resources or right to question Government performance, or just feels uncomfortable in doing so. I do not know what the answer to that question is but we urgently need a person and an entity. It does not need to be 200 people, it could be a person and 20 people, who have the resources to call out inaction and malperformance when it happens. We did it with mental health and with the police ombudsman.

We also did it with An Coimisinéir Teanga. That is an important role but nobody is going to die if their driving licence form is not available in Irish. However, we are losing one person on Irish roads every 48 hours. That is the urgency of the issue here. We need somebody with the authority and resources to bring all the disparate parts together and make it work in favour of the people who are trying to get home safely every day.

Is there anyone else to comment, maybe from the Irish Cycling Campaign?

I agree with Mr. Cannon that we need somebody to take this by the reins. It is just not happening.

We do not have that independent oversight that is able to call out when things are not happening. There are tragedies happening every 48 hours but there is also that chilling effect it has on increasing active travel and the knock-on effect on our children's health and independence. Obviously, the most important focus is on death and serious injury but there is this other massive impact on the chilling effect on even my parents not being able to go out for a walk on rural roads because it has become impossible.

We have children who are not allowed to walk to school for even the last 10 m because there are SUVs driving along the footpath outside the school.

All these kinds of small things become acceptable because there is not enforcement. It is not taken seriously.

We need leadership and it needs to be back up by action. I agree with Ms Bheilbigh about the 30 km/h urban speed limit in that if we do it piecemeal, we will break people up and end up with polarised views about whether it works. It is too complicated. We should all buy into it as a national strategy and a way to reduce road deaths, and do it together. It is with that leadership backed up by action. We have to do it properly.

Can I make one final comment on the 30 km/h?

Briefly, yes.

The process being proposed right now is the following. Every local authority in this country has to survey every town, village and city within its remit. They then have to decide which streets within each of those towns, villages and cities are appropriate for a 30 km/h speed limit. That goes out to public consultation and a report is prepared for the members of the local authority. Then the members of the local authority have to vote through individual by-laws for each of those streets in all of those towns, villages and cities. That is what is being proposed.

Gabhaim míle buíochas leis na finnéithe for coming in today. It is bleak. Every report is really bleak, from enforcement and infrastructure to funding. It makes for unique reading, to be honest, and I have listened to the testimonies today.

I am a cyclist. I have been cycling for four years. Obviously, I came back to it. The reason I came back was that trying to get around on the roads in Dublin is torture. I tried public transport, it did not work and I tried cycling. I leased a bike for a year to see what the seasons would be like and how I could cope. I loved it and I would never go back. Unfortunately, my bike is getting fixed, so I had to go back to the car this week, and I have say it is depressing. For anybody who is trying to get around the city, it is depressing.

As a cyclist, I have learned an awful lot over the last four years of cycling about the infrastructure and how dangerous it is, and how dangerous it is on the roads in Dublin. On several occasions, I have had my heart in my mouth, closed my eyes and thought, "This is it." I love it so much, however, that it is not going to put me off but it will put other people off. There are a number of areas where simple changes could be made that would make life easier.

I was coming through Phoenix Park today and I saw a father with two children who were cycling through the park. I thought that it was absolutely brilliant and amazing to see, but I was also thinking, "My God, he's brave", because I am not sure, being honest, whether I would do it if I had two children that age.

We have had a number of high-profile incidents over the last few years in Dublin West and, obviously, now the horrific incident with the scrambler in Finglas. It brings people's focus and attention on it. I wonder whether enough is being done to highlight the positive aspects of cycling and how much it can enhance your life, because all I hear is conflict between drivers and cyclists. Drivers and cyclists are at each other's throats and I am on both sides here. We need to have some way to have a conversation around how we can both co-exist. As cyclists, we do not have the infrastructure. Commuters do and they will need to share a bit of it. I wonder how we get to that stage. Maybe Mr. Cullen can come in on that one.

It is fair to say that in a lot of cases cyclists and drivers are at each other's throats. That is a culture that has been propagated partially by media and partially by issues becoming enflamed in local areas. It has not been helped at all by these major issues coming up. This is possibly, to a degree, what Deputy Crowe was alluding to about trying to fit everything in to a medieval town.

Dublin was built with the horse and cart, bikes and pedestrians in mind and we have shoehorned vehicles into all these spaces. Somewhere along the way we decided as a culture that the car is the dominant vehicle in the space and the cyclist or the pedestrian is othered in that situation. It has become almost socially acceptable to other those who choose to cycle or walk.

As for whether enough is being done to encourage people into active travel, certainly within the organisations sitting before the committee there absolutely is. This is not an issue of encouraging people to cycle. As the Deputy will know from when he started cycling, the benefits are obvious, not only for your health but merely for the fact that on a short journey you are consistently getting to your destination quickly.

The issue is that the infrastructure is not there. I experienced this yesterday. I was cycling to work. As the committee will be aware, it was quite a wet day and people almost thought I was a madman being out on the bike. I cycle mostly on segregated cycle paths in my own community and through small local areas. My journey is very safe but people drive past cyclists on these roads and they are pushed into spaces that are not shared and are not in alignment with the rules we have within the cycle design manual for mixing. That is when things become an issue and that culture is propagated. We need to deliver the infrastructure rather than try to encourage what people already want to do, which is get to their destinations quickly and sustainably.

I have another couple of questions. In terms of Age Action, a lot of older people are absolutely terrified of e-scooters, in particular, and scramblers. I would say the vast majority of e-scooters on the roads are illegal because I cycle at 25 km/h, or the maximum speed I can do on my bike because it is an electric bike, and they fly past at 30 km/h, 40 km/h or 50 km/h, yet, the witnesses might agree, enforcement is virtually non-existent. We are sharing paths because a lot of cycle infrastructure includes the cycle paths, the cycle way and the footpath. These are shared spaces.

Older people have highlighted that. We made the submission to the Department and had a collaboration with it. Older people want to cycle, believe it or not. People think they do not want to cycle but they absolutely do.

The Deputy asked what we can do to foster good relationships. For example, the Fingal Age Friendly programme had lovely intergenerational activities with trishaws and encouraging older people and young people to cycle in intergenerational cycling activities. We do a national sports physical activity day because we know the benefits of cycling as well. They create that awareness and those opportunities are really important.

Specifically in relation to that, older people also tend to use mobility scooters if they need them as a means to get around and they are very intimidated by the e-scooters. Absolutely, there should be a place for everybody on the pitch and a shared space, but it is the fact that they are quiet and it is the speed. They do not have an issue with the use of e-scooters, as the Deputy said, if they are remain under 20 km/h. It is the speed and the danger, and it has been quite frightening. Like that, enforcement was highlighted.

We believe, along with the older people's councils, that a huge part of this is about culture and behaviour. We really feel it is important to go into schools at this time when teenagers are starting to get their driver theory test and we have huge issues with accompanied drivers because both parents are working. There is an opportunity there for older people to support that, to act as a mentor to a mentee, to encourage safe driving and to translate for other children that knowledge about the impact it has on them as an older person, as their gran or as a pedestrian. There are many positives that we can do. While the legislation, the enforcement and the infrastructure are hugely important, so too is driver behaviour. We have an opportunity to change that now with the next generation coming up as well as with the existing generation.

If I could make one final point, I am delighted to hear Deputy Donnelly is enjoying the experience, as I did when I worked here in Dublin for many years. I know exactly what Deputy Crowe is talking about on the quays. That crossing over makes no sense.

Very quickly.

Bear this in mind. Despite the lack of a really good cycling infrastructure network in Dublin, although I have acknowledged it is improving, more people cycle to work and study every day in Dublin than use the Luas, the DART and commuter rail combined.

Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe chuig an gcruinniú seo. There are three areas that I want to touch on. The first is heavy goods vehicles. This is obviously a big issue in residential areas in our towns and cities around the country, particularly for vulnerable road users and where there is not dedicated infrastructure. I am thinking of areas in my own constituency like Kennelsfort Road, Palmerstown, Newcastle Road in Lucan and Aylmer Road in Newcastle, where big machines barrel down the road. They cause congestion but also pose a safety risk. What are the witnesses' thoughts on how this is being dealt with internationally? I read up on the London lorry control scheme, which has been very effective in taking lorries out of circulation. I do not want to point the finger at the Garda necessarily because there is technology we can use here that frees up Garda time to allow for more focused roads policing. I would like to get the thoughts of some of the cycling advocacy groups on that.

I actually lived in London-----

As did I.

----- for a few years. My husband went under a truck and came out the other side when it did a U-turn. He was very lucky. It was the absolute wild west. Putting the restrictions in place for heavy goods vehicles in London was a complete game-changer. They put in sensors and cameras. It is not fair on lorry drivers either. They have a tough job to do - I can understand that - but the technology is there to make lorries safer. We cannot delay it any longer. Putting it out until new stock comes in or whatever is not an option. We are seeing too many people die, especially in Dublin city, with heavy goods vehicles that are not designed to be on our urban roads.

In many cases, they should not be on the road either because the ban has been there.

It is the same in Galway. It has been infuriating hearing people talk about educating children in response to road safety when we have these powerful vehicles that are not equipped with proper technology to drive safely in our cities. It has to be a priority.

The irony is that a school in my own constituency now has safe routes to school funding to make it much safer, but it is on a road where there are often violations of a HGV ban that is there. It is a classic example of where technologies work.

Again, it is just utilising the technology that is there. Where a camera can do the work of gardaí, we should be doing it. Sometimes it is safer. We are talking about our rural roads on the likes of which we have already had a tragedy where a garda had set up a speed checkpoint. We need to be utilising technology to put cameras in place instead of putting gardaí at risk. Whether that is average speed cameras or static cameras, we need a massive roll-out of this immediately. The delay with this is incomprehensible. I do not know what the delay is. I do not know whether it is to do with the resourcing with the Courts Service such that it would not be able to cope with the detection that would happen if we had 500 speed cameras around the country.

I take the broader point on enforcement but on the specific issue of HGVs, I think that is a classic one where we could ask a local authority to pilot it, get the evidence base and roll it out quickly because it worked really well in London. I should preface all of this by saying I am a cyclist. I cycle here as regularly as I can, so I see a lot of the dangers at first hand. I hope to be able to bring my kids out cycling too.

I will go to the e-scooter issue and Age Friendly Ireland. For the last few months I have been advocating for the introduction of registration and insurance requirements for e-scooters. I think the commuter coalition has pointed out to me online a few times that anything that can go over 25 km/h should not be on the road, which is all well and good, but to the age-friendly side of the house, we do need regulations on those e-scooters. I would like to get the witnesses' views on the registration and insurance requirements I have been advocating for.

When we spoke to city councils, they absolutely called for registration and licence plates on e-scooters so that they could be identified. They have experiences of e-scooters whizzing past them and nearly knocking them over and then they are gone and there is no accountability. They would absolutely look for that. It is the same with insurance issues. If there is any medical or health issues arising from an incident, then insurance was something that they would have looked for as well during that consultation but it did not come through in the legislation.

I am keen to hear all of the witnesses' views on this question. Would Mr. Cullen like to comment?

The major challenge from what I understand is the vehicles that are illegal, or the legal vehicles that are being ridden illegally by those under the age of 16 or they are changing the limits within the e-scooters themselves. You cannot have a system to register a vehicle that is not legal on Irish roads. It just does not make sense in that manner. What we need here, rather than registration, is enforcement from An Garda Síochána in order to take these vehicles off the road.

I take the point. You cannot register a vehicle that is not legal, but that is the point. If an e-scooter being used on a cycle lane does not have a registration plate on it, then it should not be on the road and it is much easier to enforce that point. I think we are both coming from the same place on this one. If there is insurance on a vehicle and it is being used illegally, there is an accountability on the user. What I am trying to do is enforce accountability for a user.

The accountability is already on the user because they are breaking the law.

Fair enough, but in terms of identification, if we talk about the example of an older person where an e-scooter whizzes by them with a registration plate, they can report that registration plate and there is enforcement as a result, if the vehicle is being used illegally, as in the case of a legally usable car. There is another point about the manufacturer specifications and whether something can go over 25 km/h. I totally take that point and we need to enforce that with manufacturers. The reason I am coming at this is that I want to see e-scooters on the roads, because I know they are used by a lot of people for their commute, but I want to see them used safely.

Yes, that is understandable, but it adds to the point that those people who are using those vehicles, whizzing by and terrifying older people in our communities are going to continue to do so with that illegal vehicle regardless. They are buying them online and having them shipped in. I was in my local electronics retailer the other day and they were selling illegal vehicles alongside legal ones. The challenge there is why we are allowing that from our Irish retailers. How is that an appropriate thing that we allow people to do? We could go down the path of adding resistance in and making insurance-----

Neither of them are mutually exclusive, though.

----- but all we would be doing is removing opportunity from people who are using them legally and legitimately as last-man solutions and putting more financial roadblocks in their way. We want these people out of their cars and making these short journeys on legal e-scooters. If we require registration, insurance, tax and everything else, then they just will not use them. They will get in their cars and there will be more congestion problems in our communities.

Neither policy approach is a mutually exclusive solution, though. We can do both.

It has not been proven internationally to be unworkable. Basically, the cost-benefit analysis of bringing this in does not add up.

We are going to be like Denmark and Paris, where it as been introduced.

If there is going to be a registration plate that an elderly person can actually read. I would find it hard enough to read a registration plate on the back of an e-scooter. It is hard enough to read one on the back of a car.

It is worth noting that there are no recorded incidents of a legal e-scooter in Ireland striking anyone and causing a fatality. Compliant e-scooters that travel at under 25 km/h are not the problem, so there is no point in requiring registration for them. E-scooters travelling at above 25 km/h fall into a different category and are prohibited anyway.

I thank the groups for their submissions this morning. When I was a councillor in my local authority in Fingal, I remember estates would be fighting to be named as one of the four or five pilot 30 km/h areas we had every year, because they were understood as being important in making communities safer, particularly for children and vulnerable road users. That was not just a perceptions but was backed up by statistics. A number of the witnesses have cited those statistics in their submissions and they are worth repeating. One in ten pedestrians will die if struck by a car travelling at 30 km/h. At 50 km/h, half will die, and once we get to 60 km/h, the likelihood is death.

I joined the Love 30 protest outside the Dáil at the end of last year, as did other Deputies. I know there was real frustration about the decision of the Minister for Transport not to use the power that is available to him right now in terms of a default 30 km/h setting in built-up areas. I know there was a meeting and it was spoken about earlier on. I might direct this first to the Dublin Commuter Coalition. Can its representatives outline what options are available to the Minister? It is striking that there are two routes and their potential outcomes are so different. They might talk a little more about what the consequences of the Minister deciding to go down one route are going to be.

When we gave that presentation late last year, there was a representative of the Minister in the room. He conveyed the message that the Minister was being advised by the Attorney General that he could not use those powers to implement a nationwide default speed limit.

A default speed limit does not exist according to what we were told is the Attorney General's position, which is obviously incorrect in that the default speed limit is 50 km/h on most roads. So he can use that. Furthermore, there was another question about the definition of an urban area under the eyes of the law. We have identified about 80 or so urban areas that are defined. That covers a population of about 1.5 to 2 million people. Even if we were to go and use that ministerial power within the Attorney General's advice around urban areas we could still cover half the population in 30 km/h speed limits, which would have a massive effect because we are talking about major cities and towns where there is that larger mix of population.

As my colleagues alluded to earlier, that now has to go back to the local authorities and, for a bit of perspective, the council that is furthest ahead of this is Dublin City Council. That is because it went through the whole process a number of years ago of mapping the streets and brought it to the council chamber where councillors voted an amendment in which ultimately caused it to drop. Dublin City Council is likely one of the most progressive councils at the moment that will pass this. It is the furthest ahead and even it will only see it brought to the council chamber in quarter 3 or 4 of this year. The chance of meeting the March 2027 deadline is completely unrealistic and that is with the councils that want to actually implement this. We know within more rural communities there is a lot of resistance to this.

I thank Mr. Cullen for that. We might have the opportunity for the Minister to come in later on these sessions on some of that and particularly about the Attorney General's advice is really useful.

On a broader issue, I was in Amsterdam over the weekend and whenever I am there I am always amazed at the scale of the cycling infrastructure there and some of the bike parking facilities. There are massive, underground sheltered places for storing literally thousands of bikes. I was taking pictures and sending them to my friends. That is the kind of nerd that I am. It really brought home to me the absolute lack of ambition that we have in Ireland in terms of making cycling safe and making it convenient for people. Mr. Quigley already spoke about the scale of people who are already cycling.

In Amsterdam everyone uses a bike, from the richest business person to the most broke student, everyone has a bike and the city facilitates it. It is often the argument trotted out in Ireland that we have medieval cities and we do not have the space. Amsterdam is pretty medieval and it has a lot of canals competing for the space. Maybe the Irish Cycling Campaign and Cycling Ireland could comment on what steps there are to really enhance our ambition around making cycling a convenient and safe option for people who want to do it but for all those reasons do not want to do it just yet. How can we make it better for them?

On infrastructure, for the first couple of years councils were hesitant about getting stuck in. My own city of Galway was a bit of a laggard. Now, everyone is chomping at the bit. It is starting to take shape. If we look at Limerick, they have the guts of a cycling network built and will probably have it completed in the next five years. It is absolutely transformative. The only thing is, they want more money. We are nearly there but the inflationary pressures on delivering those networks is having a big impact. Maybe it is a good thing because we actually have cities fighting each other over the money now.

I wanted to ask about the inflationary effect. I have submitted a few parliamentary questions to the Minister for Transport on the Department's estimate of the inflationary impact because we know inflation in the building sector generally is huge. Particularly, the fact that it is a €360 million allocation for each of the years in the NDP up to 2030. As a base figure that is fine but the fact that it is not rising at all, the value and what we are actually going to be able to deliver in walking and cycling - it is not just cycling but is pedestrianisation as well - will decrease each of the next five years. So, there will be less for those ambitious local authorities to do.

We have schemes queued up and councils actually want to deliver these schemes but they are scraping the barrel for money at this stage. It is the bang for your buck we get with active travel infrastructure and the speed of roll-out is much quicker.

I could not agree more. Amsterdam was not always Amsterdam. Amsterdam was once a very dangerous place to be either a cyclist or a pedestrian and the Amsterdam populace said they were not tolerating it any longer. Here in Dublin, as I mentioned earlier, with limited infrastructure there are thousands of people on their bikes everyday. Dublin City Council did some really important analysis recently of the Clontarf cycleway where they compared usage of the cycleway with weather patterns. The assumption is that it is too wet and cold in Dublin. That is nonsense. It is wet and cold in many other cities throughout Europe. On days that it rained, on that particular piece of infrastructure, because it is superb from beginning to end, there was no reduction in usage during the rainy periods.

We need to look at the exemplars nationally. Look at what Robert Burns did in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council when he was director of road services there. He is now the county manager in Monaghan. Look at what is happening in Limerick. There are pockets of incredible excellence that are happening right now. We need to empower those kind of people to do more. I was at a wonderful conference organised in Limerick by Limerick City Council on active travel. Ms Bheilbigh is right. Every single local authority in the country is coming to the realisation that this is a wonderful way of getting people around our towns and cities in a far more efficient manner. All we need to do is resource them, empower them and tell them to go and do it.

Gabhaim buíochas libh ar fad agus fáilte romhaibh isteach. I come from a rural constituency. I am a member of the Sligo Cycling Campaign, just to put that out there. In Ireland we have the highest use of cars in Europe. We can hear from active age groups that older people want to use public transport and they want to cycle. Young people and children want to cycle and want to use public transport. It seems our whole transport systems are designed for people in their mid-20s to mid-60s, that is, for people who are using cars.

It has to be raised that we have a quite a strong car lobby group in Ireland which, unfortunately, can be seen as influencing policy in the commitment that is not given to delivering not just cycling infrastructure but also public transport particularly in rural constituencies like mine. I know from being a councillor sitting on Sligo County Council, with active travel projects, as all the witnesses have said, there is an energy people get from them and the appetite for them is enormous.

I think having a commissioner is a great idea and that it is intergovernmental. As Ms Bheilbigh said, cycling is not only a public safety issue. We can look at health benefits. We can look at climate impact. It is cross-departmental. Surely, this should be the role of the RSA, rather than creating another department. Obviously that is not delivering what it should be. I would like to hear more from Mr. Cullen because it was great to hear outlined in his statement changes that could be made in the RSA, and from Mr. Cannon and Ms Bheilbigh as well. If there was to be a commissioner, can it exist? The RSA is existing outside of Government Departments. It is an agency rather than a direct department. Is that what needs to happen? Does there need to be a full overhaul?

We had the Indecon report in the last 18 months, which listed out all the reasons the RSA is not managing to implement its remit. One of the things highlighted in that report is there is no public representative on the board. It is a private board. In a way, the public itself does not have a representative to hold the RSA to account. It is only when the RSA is brought before this committee or in the public sphere that it really gets criticism. Regarding the metrics it is supposedly aiming for within the Vision Zero policy, there are no ramifications for the RSA if it does not meet them. When these tragedies happen within communities, be them rural or urban-----

Would that be the Minister for Transport-----

It can very well be the Minister for Transport or the Minister with responsibilities for road safety or, indeed, a particular commissioner. It is really up to the Government of the day and members to advocate for that. Our preference is for a Road Safety Authority that is focused on road safety. According to the Indecon report, the vast majority of the RSA staff members are involved with driver licensing and car testing, which means it is simply impossible for them to focus on what they have to if the RSA is not being given the staff to do the job.

That is great. I thank Mr. Cullen.

We must have somebody with legislative authority and resources residing outside of Government.

That is what we have done with every other commissioner. We have a Minister responsible for mental health but there is also a mental health commissioner. We have a Minister responsible for the justice and the policing system and we also have a police ombudsman and we have a children's ombudsman because we assign critical policy importance to those areas. I cannot understand why, with somebody dying every 48 hours on ours roads, it is not a critical policy ambition to have somebody with that authority who calls out inaction and who calls out the Minister for justice. Why is our roads policing unit not up to its strength of seven, eight, nine or ten years ago? Why, when there is an argument that makes no sense from an evidence-based perspective not to put in a cycleway in Galway city, Salthill, Sandymount or all of these places, is the RSA is utterly silent on these matters? One of the most effective ways of protecting vulnerable road users is separating them from cars, yet the RSA is silent.

I agree.

Does Cycling Ireland have confidence in the RSA? I will allow the Senator more time.

The RSA as has already been outlined performs two separated functions. I would argue that a conflict of interest arises. The more cars there are on Irish roads, the more money the RSA makes. That is a conflict of interest. It should not be allowed. The RSA does incredible work in managing a difficult administrative and bureaucratic system around driver licensing, NCTs and so on. It does not do a good job in advocating for safer roads.

The Irish Cycling Campaign made a comprehensive submission to the Indecon review. That was clearly taken on board in the recommendations. There are brilliant people working in the RSA; it is just that the structure of the RSA is designed in such a way that it cannot deliver those targets. Advocating for cycling infrastructure was mentioned as part of that. We suggested this on numerous occasions and were told that is kind of a political hot potato. The RSA is standing back. I do not know what it is about the set-up of the organisation but either it cannot or does not feel it can criticise or make suggestions in that way.

The former chair, Liz O'Donnell, was questioned on RTÉ not long after I called for this two years ago. She said she would really like to see more authority and resources assigned to the RSA in terms of its road safety remit. It does not have the legislative authority to call things out and make people accountable. There are superb people leading it but I do not think they feel they have right or the authority.

It is not a personal thing, of course. It is the structure that needs to be changed. I went to the presentation and I was at the demonstration out the front. It is the Minister's decision although it has been put over to the local authorities. How much of an outlier are we in Europe in not having the lower 30 km/h speed limit? How much are we out of step?

This is rapidly growing throughout all of western and central Europe in all of the big countries like Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The ex-chair of our board drove from Dublin to Dubrovnik. It was 30 km/h through all the towns and villages until she got to Dubrovnik where it was 40 km/h, I think. It is growing. Bologna in Italy had a comprehensive roll-out across the city, as did Wales and what is happening is we now have the evidence backing it up. It is not like we are going into this blindly. We know it works and the impact not just on road deaths and serious injuries but also on quality of life of what are trying to do in terms of creating spaces that are age friendly as well.

At the start of this meeting the Chair asked us to consider practical solutions that can be implemented. The fact is that the Love 30 campaign, the 30 km/h urban speed limits excluding arterial roads is the practical solution. It is stroke-of-a-pen stuff that can be done within a few days.

Good morning to everyone. I thank Dr. Coveney, Ms McGuigan, Ms Bheilbigh, Mr. Ó Tuama, Mr. Cullen, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Quilligan and Mr. Cannon for being here this morning. I am a Senator based in Mayo. I am very active in the community in road safety measures and promotion of the ten-minute town concept. I co-led a project with Kevin Loftus, a local architect in Ballina, called "Ireland's greenest town". The witnesses are all familiar with the practical and common-sense approach the ten-minute town policy promotes. We have been very enthusiastic about it and the positives it can have for public health and road safety. I was previously a member of Mayo County Council. We were very enthusiastic about local transport plans. I have aired this regularly. As local representatives, community activists and former public representatives, the witnesses see in their communities all the time what needs to be done. It is often quite clear. We had Dublin-based consultants who were very well paid, hundreds of thousands and more money topped up, for us to be told exactly what we already knew in lots of the proposed interventions. If the money had been spent that was allocated for the plans and consultancy on actual road safety measures, we would have had a much safer town afterwards, whereas we have a document that has not really been implemented. There is a lot of sense in what has been said about the proposal of a commissioner. If local authorities and engineers listened to the vast majority of public representatives about simple practical interventions, we could make it a lot safer. On the Love 30 campaign, where I grew up on Killala Road is an old boreen. It has now broadened out into a really busy regional road with a factory with 1,000 employees on it and built-up residential areas. The main negative impact is road safety. Children do not feel safe on the footpaths. I see that with my nieces and nephews. They go to a school which ironically only in the past few days and previously campaigned for an extension of the footpath to a new school built on that road. It is asking for the speed limit to be reduced to 30 km/h and for a pedestrian crossing and footpath to be delivered on it. I have been very supportive of the safe routes to school model in my advocacy. The point I have always made is it only makes sense if a full plan for a school is implemented. Now, I think a political decision has been made to give piecemeal interventions outside of schools but the whole idea is there is a route to school not just outside of school. It does not make sense and that opinion is shared locally. I would like to acknowledge the advocates in my community, the students in Culleens National School whom I look forward to supporting and Cian Ginty, a Ballina man from the Claddagh Road. He is the editor of irishcycle.com. It would have been great if he was here today; I hope the next time he can be included in this conversation because he has a lot of thoughts on it. There are so many interventions that are quick wins and that I have constantly advocated to local engineers in the local authority. Some interventions are almost shortcuts that can connect thousands of residents and employees and are good for active travel and tourism but which are being ignored. Even the local transport plans have not really enabled the realisation of the smart interventions one sees across the Continent. What do the witnesses think a way around that is? Will the commissioner solve that? Is it to improve local democracy and decision-making as opposed to the more centralised approach? We have consultants and we are going around in circles without intervention.

I would welcome the witnesses' thoughts on this point.

I said earlier that Mayo was one of the counties that hosted the massive road safety day last year and it was really successful. Hundreds of older people were there who also went out and told other older people about what they had learned and the services available.

The Senator picked up on a key point. While we have predominantly talked about cycling today, we are here to talk about road safety for older people as pedestrians, drivers, cyclists and other road users. That is impacted by everything. The Senator hit the nail on the head. We have done walkability audits. We did a walkability audit tool with the centre of excellence and universal design at the National Disability Authority, NDA, and the green schools programme. We developed a tool that was able to look at all those things, allow us to join all the dots and make sure everybody felt part of the plan put in place and there was a space for everybody. There were then infrastructural things, whether that was part of the infrastructure, pedestrian crossings or timings, all of which was taken into account.

Around 70 towns are at varying stages. They interlink with the active travel plan and other plans under way. If it is a physical activity plan, it is about putting infrastructure into the public realm. This is working very well. It is very important that we have the investment. We use mostly capital expenditure that exists already. We do not have a new budget for this, so we tried to link in with those existing funds. This collaborative effort is where everybody will come together to make sure the streets are safer.

It is important we get to that point about older people. I said at the outset that older people use their cars less at night and do not like driving at night. I am 53 years of age and even I do not like driving at night because my eyesight is not as good as it was. Our infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is not conducive to driving a lot, so it is important that older people have the opportunity to engage, especially if they want to go to a leisure centre in the evening or at night and things like that. That is why those critical pieces, the Local Link, the Garda and other State agencies, coming together is so important. It can be done. We just need to see more of it.

There is a huge knowledge source in the local community through the local authorities, older people’s councils, Comhairle na nÓg, the youth councils and the public participation networks. If we are talking about something being done more quickly and identifying what changes need to happen in a town or rural area and doing something more immediate then putting it out to a consultant who will give a report back in 12 months, it would be better to use the structures and processes in place in local government to engage local communities. This would particularly be the case through the community departments, the age-friendly programmes and community safety partnerships. I ask everyone to be mindful that there are good structures there that can support quicker, practical implementation of actions.

One of the biggest challenges we have locally when we get to the stage where we have plans ready to go, with great drawings and funding, is that there are often quite a lot of political objections in local areas. It stirs up community groups, pitting people who rely on their vehicles against those who just want safe active travel infrastructure. While I am sure the people in this room are very supportive, perhaps it requires discussions in their own party structures and with colleagues at council level to make sure they actively support all these infrastructural undertakings. Ultimately, we are talking about public safety for children going to school and people going to work or wherever, rather than an attack, necessarily, on a way of life, which is often how it is presented.

I thank Mr. Cullen. I thank all the witnesses and representatives of vulnerable road users for attending this meeting. We spoke about infrastructure and many other issues, and I fully take everything on board. This committee will be very supportive of the creation of a single road safety commissioner.

I just want to get my head around what the biggest risk is to a cyclist, a pedestrian or an elderly person on the road. Personally, I suspect it is driver behaviour. We spoke about it and it was spoken about in the opening statements. As a cyclist, pedestrian and driver, I think driver behaviour matters more than anything else. While driver behaviour is shaped by education, which we spoke about and which features in some of the recommendations in the opening statements, enforcement really matters. It, more than anything else, shapes driver behaviour. Mr. Cannon alluded to this in his opening statement. In 2009, the strength of our roads policing unit was approximately 1,050 gardaí. According to the latest information available to me, at the end of December 2025, there were, at best, 650 gardaí in the unit. We have 400 fewer gardaí in our roads policing unit than we did back in 2009. I do not know how many additional cars, e-scooters and cyclists and so on we have on the roads now. Do the witnesses agree that one of the key priorities for this committee, in terms of actions arising out of a report, is the need to strengthen our roads policing unit? We spoke about variable speed and fixed speed cameras as well.

Is this about enforcing existing legislation or do any of the organisations see legislative gaps? I was really struck by the operation by An Garda Síochána in December, when 26,500 fixed-penalty notices were issued for speeding offences, 1,700 for not wearing a seatbelt and 450 for using a mobile phone, while 3,000 cars were seized at the side of the road, of which 60% had no insurance. I would like to get the witnesses' views on driver behaviour and the need for enforcement and if they see any clear legislative gaps or if is it about enforcing existing road traffic legislation.

The enforcement part of the picture is absolutely essential. The other factor not been mentioned thus far is car bloat, the increasing size of cars on the road. Over 50% of new car sales are of sport utility vehicle, SUV, body types. The cars are getting wider. We can see it where they are encroaching beyond parking spaces. The bonnet height has been increasing by about half a centimetre per year since 2010. This means that when there is an impact between a car and a person walking along, particularly older people, rather than their legs being hit and they being flipped onto the bonnet, now their central organs are being hit, which is obviously much more damaging, and then they are run over by the car. The other difficulty with bigger sport utility vehicles is they have larger blind spots, or blind zones as we call them in the advocacy community. The mass of vehicles is increasing towards 2,000 kg and 2,500 kg. There are interventions that can be made. In Paris, which Mr. Cannon mentioned, Mayor Hidalgo brought in higher parking charges for bigger vehicles on urban and city streets. This is an under-acknowledged part of the problem. A frail, older pedestrian hit by a bigger vehicle has a much lower chance of survival.

The Cathaoirleach referred to the number of additional cars on the road. It is about 1 million, and in that time we have lost around 400 gardaí. We have a vastly increasing number of cars and a vastly increasing population and a decreasing number of gardaí in the roads policing unit.

If there is one thing I want people to take away from this meeting, it is that cycling is a safe activity and so is walking on a footpath in your community. It is when you have to interact with faster moving vehicles that it becomes unsafe. There is guidance within these cycle design manuals that dictates when you need to bring in certain types of infrastructure, whether it be paint on the side of a road for cycling or segregated cycle infrastructure that removes the cyclist from the road entirely. Following that guidance will be massive in terms of increasing safety. Not only that, but it will also make people in their communities feel safe as well.

The Cathaoirleach referred to driver behaviour and how we can improve it. The Government, in the last month, has begun discussing mandatory helmet laws for e-scooter users and now e-cyclists. A 2006 study in the UK concluded that drivers, on average, overtake cyclists 8 cm closer when they are wearing a helmet versus when they are not wearing a helmet. The researchers theorised that this was because the helmet dehumanised the person, so the driver felt the cyclists had responsibility for their safety and they did not need to worry about overtaking because the cyclist was sensible and could avoid it.

All our energy and ambition need to revolve around the enforcement of our existing legislation. We do not need any more legislation.

We have reams of legislation that is not being enforced. I really question the wisdom of these bank holiday weekend campaigns telling everyone to slow down. They are wonderful but they give a sense that on Tuesday morning it is back as you were. The statistics indicate the level of law-breaking that is identified and punished when we step up enforcement. It is an indication of what is possible. Enforcement needs to be routine and relentless. I was talking to an American visitor in my local town, Kinvara, only two days ago. He found it extraordinary that he had been driving in Ireland for two weeks and had not encountered one single policeman or woman.

I have been driving for a long time and I have never encountered a policeman.

We need to help the Garda. We need to resource it and give it whatever additional powers it suggests it needs. We also need to automate to the greatest possible extent. On the speed limit review group, the NTA, the RSA and the Garda all advocated for a far greater use of cameras. Our performance around cameras is appalling. Cameras have been shown to work in every other country in Europe.

I am also a primary school teacher. Going back to the education piece with the RSA, I find it absolutely infuriating that we are putting plastic vests on small children. Every day, I see small children, five-year-olds, walking into school and SUVs driving along the same footpaths, blocking zebra crossings. I have worked across the country, in Dublin and in schools around the country. Consistently, one of the most dangerous places for children is outside a school. All we need is for a squad car to drive by and tap on the window once a month or whatever, and the drivers will cop on. We have seen it happen. One car got clamped once, and there was nothing outside the school for two months afterwards. Then people thought the clampers were gone and they could start again.

I think we run into the same problem at every school.

Even that level of enforcement will just remind parents. This happens outside every single school in the country.

I know we are talking about the legislation but I emphasise education and driver behaviour, issues like distraction and breaking or flagrantly disregarding the rules. That is a real opportunity for us. I have seen real evidence of how we can bring about culture change if we do that. One of the things I wanted to mention was that Vision Zero talks a lot about technology. If we want to catch up with our European counterparts, we really have to look at shut-off valves and cars not starting where alcohol or drugs are detected. There is so much technology out there that we could be looking at in Ireland if we want to be innovative in our approach. The committee should consider that.

The former Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, when he was before this committee in May 2024, committed to strengthening the roads policing unit by 150 by the end of 2025. Assistant Commissioner Gunne, when she was before the committee in October last, confirmed that only 50% of those posts had been filled. I have to move on. Deputy Boland is next.

Representatives of the RSA were before the committee in October of last year. I was really struck by their attitude, that they felt they were performing strongly in relation to road safety and that their main focus seemed to be on public awareness campaigns. Listening to the witnesses this morning, it is clear there are deficits right across infrastructure, monitoring and capacity. Where would each of the witnesses like to see the RSA's focus? I have a number of questions, if they would not mind being brief.

What we need is an evidence-based approach. Getting a couple of young lads from Galway into a focus group in a hotel and basing an advertisement on that, and then measuring your success rate on the amount of hits that ad gets, is not road safety. The RSA needs the expertise in there. It needs engineers and public health doctors on the board in order that it has that knowledge behind its policies and how it implements them. At the moment, it is just not cutting it.

Would everyone have a similar view? Yes.

I remember when the Road Safety Authority appeared at the committee, it was asked whether it had engineering and road design staff. It does not. The RSA does not take responsibility, or at least it is not seen as a stakeholder within local authorities to contribute when we have road design projects. That is a simple and utterly fundamental failure of the Road Safety Authority, if it is not a stakeholder in designing and implementing safe roads in our country. That is one individual piece.

There was brief mention of campaigning. Unfortunately, from our perspective, a lot of the RSA's campaigning seems to be focused around maybe putting the blame on the victim for not wearing the right clothes when they were out, and for being hit by a car travelling at excessive speeds. It also focuses on the fact that if you do not have a car, you are somehow less independent than other people, which is simply untrue. It is doing that because it is outsourcing a lot of its media work. I worked in media for 15 years. I have a degree in film and television production and I know exactly the type of traps the RSA is falling into. That needs to be brought in-house, into the Department of Transport, and really focused on actual road safety, instead of just telling people it is their fault they got hurt because they were not wearing a hi-vis jacket or helmet.

We run a Cycle Right programme through the Department and with the RSA, which funds part of it. In the last four years, we have delivered it to about 200,000 kids aged eight to 11. There are three levels in the course but level 1 is all we can deliver. We have spoken to the RSA about it. We cannot actually bring the kids out onto the road or onto the safe paths outside the schools in rural areas. It is happy that we have the hi-vis vests and are teaching children how to cycle in the playground. It does not listen, however, when we ask to go to level 2 and actually make cycling safe.

That seems very light-touch.

We delivered that within our school and it is absolutely excellent. We see the confidence that it gives children. When they go on to secondary schools, I see how they approach junctions and everything. The only problem I have with the programme is that the roll-out is not comprehensive enough. It should be put into schools, as swimming is. We should lobby to have it as part of the curriculum. That would prepare children for later life in road-craft, in their driving and having empathy for other road users. It is brilliant but needs more roll-out.

We have consulted 50,000 older people, who are not a homogeneous group, with a mixture of disabilities and all different types of people. Earlier we spoke about implementation and bringing everybody together to consult. That is what is really important, whether you are cyclist, driver, resident, business, a local authority, a library or whatever the case may be. It is the importance of bringing everyone to work fastidiously together on that walkability and town plan.

Is it the case that the RSA does not do that? It does not engage with all the key stakeholders.

We do through our age-friendly programme. Everybody is invited to participate in that and when they come in, their voice is heard. The thing is, when we co-design----

Is the RSA listening? I apologise for interrupting but I am conscious of the time.

When we do that, we bring in technicians and engineers from the local authority. I mentioned earlier that we roll out the training for thousands of those across the local authority. It would depend on whether the Road Safety Authority at local level would come into that and be part of it. We certainly have engagement from the Garda through crime prevention, environmental design principles or making sure they are there for that. The Garda will always come in as part of that committee.

Does Ms McGuigan feel the RSA is listening enough?

We have participated with the RSA-----

In terms of delivery of local projects at local level, the RSA participates with us more at national level on the transport working group that we have.

I want to come back to the idea of having a commissioner.

I am really sorry, I have to move on. Ms Bheilbigh mentioned that she wanted to see the roll-out of more cameras. I think she mentioned a figure of 500. Everyone at this committee would be supportive of that.

There are not 500 of them.

She said she would like to see the roll-out of 500 cameras.

Yes.

Where should the cost and responsibility for that, both nationally and locally, lie?

In the North, for bus lane cameras and stuff like, it is left up to the councils to run those. Given that most of these activities are basically criminal activities, in that they break the law, responsibility probably needs to be with An Garda Síochána. I do not know, though, as I would not have expertise.

If we leave it to the local authorities, I am worried about inconsistent implementation. On that, what is the role of the Department in all of this? Where is the Department in terms of strategy for road safety?

Right now, the Department is technically the lead on road safety. I am a member of the road user safety forum and we meet once every quarter with senior officials in the Department on the whole issue of road safety. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, have responsibility for road safety.

I would question whether there is a deep enough understanding of the evidence-based policy approach Ms Bheilbigh and others have outlined to be able to be that effective advocate for, and provider of, sound road safety policy.

Getting back to the issue of enforcement and the RSA, the RSA resides within what I will call a legislative constriction. I suspect it is handcuffed to a great degree when it comes to what it can and cannot do. The only way to fix that is to create an entity that has oversight of the RSA. Let the RSA work on all the administrative and bureaucratic stuff associated with driver licensing, the NDLS, the NCT and so on and let somebody have the authority, the energy and the resources to focus on road safety alone. You will see a transformative approach. You will see lack of performance being called out and real accountability. You will see people in this building being questioned on their performance and on whether they are fulfilling their role when it comes to road safety. That is the only solution.

Collisions and serious injuries cost us €1.3 billion annually. A tiny fraction of that would fund our road safety commission. It would be a really strong signal of our intent to make our roads safer. Right now we are moving aimlessly about from strategy to strategy with no real performance, no real action taking place and no real questioning of the lack of performance.

The Chair is going to be giving out to me but that figure really strikes me. If we were to look at the cost of technology and safety, etc., versus the cost of all the collisions, even in the form of a cost-benefit analysis, let alone the lives-----

And the human cost to families every second day.

Yes, exactly. I suggest, Chair, we have to make that point very strongly in our recommendations.

Yes. I call Deputy Collins.

I thank the Chairperson. There are few things I want to raise. I might end up asking a few questions of Age Friendly Ireland in a minute, but I was listening to some of the comments there. I was not able to tune into all of it but it was interesting. The gentlemen at the front said if you do not have a car you are less independent, but where I come from if you do not have a car you are finished. It is basically like that. The nearest shop is eight to ten miles away from people, so they have no choice. In some situations some of them would like to cycle but they just would not be able to, so it is a very serious situation. Rural isolation is serious. We cannot throw it all into the one pot; not everybody is in the city.

I have a huge issue with car manufacturers and the technology that is in cars these days. Nobody is talking about the fact there is a portable television in the front of everybody's car today. That is what is there and nobody gives a damn. When you were driving long ago, you put your hand down to put on the radio or the heating and that was it. Now you have to pull in somewhere if you want to operate those properly and most people will not. They will be tapping away and we know what is going to happen. Car manufacturers need to be brought in here, or the witnesses as groups need to be meeting them, because we need to change drivers' attitudes so they keep their eyes on the road. There is no point in telling people to stay off the phone if you have that portable television in front of you and you are flicking away at it.

I did a lot of travelling over the weekend. I would say I did about 1,500 km in three days. That is nothing new because it is west Cork and it is just the geographical spread of the constituency I am in. I left there at 4 a.m. to be up here, so it is drive, drive, drive for me every day of the week. The potholes are scandalous. I would hate to be a cyclist. I used to cycle hundreds and hundreds of miles a week, but to drive it is impossible, never mind cycling it. I was on the wrong side of the road for most of the first 20 minutes of my journey today trying to veer around potholes. Where is the state aid? Why are the roads not brought up to some kind of standard? Maybe something the committee could do is see what kind of material we are putting down. The front page of the Southern Star was about the signs on the road and how young people are not able to pass tests because some signs are gone and others have growth over them. It is appalling to be a driver in today's world. I sometimes think we are very critical of drivers and we should not be. The gentlemen said a while ago that the vehicles are getting bigger, but the roads are getting narrower. The witnesses should come down to my constituency and I will drive them around. They will see trees out across the road quite frequently. It is not trees that have blown down here and there, it is just because there is no verge-cutting legislation in place. I was up in County Clare last summer and every place was beautiful. It was clean, you could drive safely and everything was lovely, but in Cork and other areas, growth is heading well out onto the road. You could easily put a cycle lane or double cycle lane on some of the roads I travel on if the overgrowth were removed. There is a serious situation.

I was interested to hear what the Age Friendly Ireland witnesses had to say. Being from a rural community I have to fight for the rural cause, though I certainly will not be forgetting the urban cause either. We have Local Link and I am not going to come in here and condemn it because an incredible job has been done in the last two to three years. It really has developed and we give credit where credit is due. However, those buses cannot cover everything. Ms McGuigan mentioned the community car scheme, which is something that needs to be developed to try to get rid of the blight of rural isolation. A lot of people tell me they cannot get down to meet the rural bus and ask whether it could come up to them. That is never going to happen and I know it cannot because we cannot take it off its route, but how do we get people mobilising again in a fair manner? Is it possible the community car scheme could be rolled out in a far bigger way than it has been?

I am so glad to hear the Deputy's voice because he represents a huge proportion of our older people's councils who live in rural areas. I am likewise from a very rural area - on the Border between Monaghan and Fermanagh - and I know all too well about the infrastructure and the challenges. It is really important, as I said at the outset, that older people start to use their cars less as they get older but, as they have said, they should not have them taken away. They have said we should not define their lifestyle by removing their independence. For an 89-year-old person who takes their car out two or three times a week, the car could be their lifeline and it is important they have it because of that connection. Deputy Collins will know that from the people he talks to. Often they are safer drivers than many others. I talk about driver behaviour because it is really important. The Deputy talked about the technology changing and the television, effectively, in your car that is a distraction. It is not that anybody goes out with the intent to harm.

From our perspective there are lots of measures and Local Link, as the Deputy says, cannot get everywhere. We have put in loads of age-friendly bus shelters, including some beautiful ones in the Gaeltacht areas with Údarás na Gaeltachta, which have increased people's capacity to engage and participate. Community care is an absolute lifeline because there is company and a whole psychosocial support to older people availing of it as well. We need to roll it out more, though. It is more of an investment. There is not a huge cost and it is not a capital cost. It is more about things like recruiting volunteers. Deputy Collins, being from a rural area, will have seen the decline in volunteers over the years, particularly of older volunteers since Covid, and we are not necessarily seeing the landscape change where more volunteers are coming in. It is really important we can engage with organisations that have the trusted volunteer base who can come in and do it. I will let Dr. Coveney speak to where it is rolling out, because there are some fantastic examples across the country.

In Louth, Meath and Fingal, Local Link has the community car and in Kildare it was shortlisted for an age-friendly project in our national awards as well, so there are some really good examples of where the community car can bring people to do their shopping once a week or to their health appointment and so on. That is what it is designed to do. It is for people who cannot make it to the bus service themselves. It can also connect them to the bus that will get them to one of the bigger hospitals in Dublin, so it is a lifeline for people. It is happening in some areas but it is not being rolled out consistently and that is certainly something that could be done as a practical measure.

May I quickly respond to a point Deputy Collins raised?

It is the Deputy's time.

Yes, absolutely.

I live in rural south Galway and a car borders on an absolute necessity. You cannot have a normal family functioning without a car, so that is a given and I do not disagree with the Deputy for a moment, but this is about choice. No matter what form of transport you use, you should feel safe and secure doing so. I drove from my home to Athenry train station this morning. At no point during that drive did I feel remotely vulnerable or that my life was at risk. However, when you get off the train and cycle, as Deputy Crowe did earlier, from Heuston Station to here, every moment of that journey you feel at risk. You should never have that feeling on a bike or on any other mode of transport. That is what it is about. It is about equality, equity and ensuring that no matter what mode of transport you use, you are safe from the beginning to the end of your journey.

I thank the Chair for having me at the committee today. I am not a member but this subject is very close to me and I am glad to welcome the witnesses here, a lot of whom I know already.

I would echo the comments Mr. Cannon made. Driver distraction is a massive issue for safety on our roads. Deputy Collins highlighted very succinctly the issue of how we design our cars. It is the size of the cars but also the fact that there are these non-tactile displays. You used to be able to focus on the road, move your hand around and try to figure out how to turn up and down the radio whereas now it is all like an iPad screen in your car. It is a massive distraction and there is a difference. It is as Mr. Cannon put it. I brought my child to school today on the bike. I put my hand out to change lanes and I do not know if the person in the car behind me is going to be looking and see me. Every time I do that I get a little chill. I never experience that when I am driving the car and putting an indicator on. You know at the very least that if the car behind does not see that, there are impact zones there and safety features built in that you just do not have as a user on your bike. There is a serious difference there.

One of the key elements to my mind of road safety is the default 30 km/h speed limits. I am a huge advocate of that and we have been pushing for that. Some of the pushback that we get on the default 30 is that it is too slow, but it is actually twice as fast as buses go on average in Dublin city. If we got everyone going at 30 km/h around the city, we would actually be doing pretty well.

The Dublin Commuter Coalition touched on this a little. Key to the success of road safety, other than enforcement, which we have spoken about a lot, is safety by design in road design and junction design. In my constituency of Dublin South-West, South Dublin County Council has actually been to the fore and I commend it on a lot of the safe cycling infrastructure it has rolled out over the last five years. It is building a south Dublin cycle network. Its latest phase is being rolled out in Knocklyon at the moment and there are plans for a Dutch roundabout. Immediately, there is local uproar about the fact that this roundabout is going down to one lane and it will bring in loads of traffic congestion, which is just during the construction phase, and after that we are not going to get anywhere. It is an absolute disgrace that the only organisations that will contribute to the public consultation in relation to this will be the likes of the south Dublin chapter of the Dublin Cycling Campaign, the Dublin commuters and all these voluntary organisations and that we do not have any State agencies rowing in behind these proposed changes which the council is bringing in because it is making it safer for people. It is narrowing junctions to make it safer for cyclists to turn and all that kind of stuff. I would love to see Age Action coming in and saying this is a good thing for everyone. I would love to see the RSA having that mandate, and perhaps the road safety commissioner and the likes of Dublin Bus as well. We constantly face this conflict - there are commuters in buses versus people in cars versus vulnerable road users on bikes or whatever. I would like witnesses' thoughts generally on who should be contributing to these public consultations which are so important in getting public buy-in to these projects and getting the local politicians behind them. That is a massive issue in the roll-out of these things. The council executive might be pushing it but it then gets pushback locally on these measures. Can the commuters start on that and then we will go on to Cycling Ireland?

The Deputy was talking about the backlash against pro-pedestrian, pro-cycling, pro-active travel users. On the Love 30 campaign, there has been a lot of hysteria around the 30 km/h speed limit. It is important to reflect on how minimal this change is. First, it only applies to urban areas, second, it does not apply to national roads, third, it does not apply to arterial roads, and four, it is a default and it can be changed. This is a minor change that is causing mass hysteria but will have a massive impacts for the areas where it matters and where the councils are willing to change the roads to 30 km/h. This protects pedestrians, cyclists, elderly people and everyone in this room. I would like to think it improves driver throughput on the roads as well in getting rid of the traffic problem we have in the city.

On stakeholder engagement at local level, there will always be a level of engagement at community base, but leadership needs to come from the elected officials. With things like that roundabout, you will have councillors and Deputies who believe they are acting in the right in advocating for a single business or a single person in their community, but it actually has a massive impact on the tens or hundreds of thousands of people moving on public and active transport through the city every day. Bringing in these types of changes to roundabouts in local communities takes people out of their cars because people are enabled to use a different form of transport and that reduces congestion. We want to see that leadership at elected level in local communities.

Another constituency that we want to see supporting schemes is the public health community and the Department of Health. Irish Doctors for the Environment is an excellent organisation. It is a small voluntary group. Ultimately the emergency departments will become less chaotic if there are fewer pedestrian and cycle incidents on the roads. We need more leadership on it.

It is really interesting to hear the witnesses use phrases such as we have reams of good legislation that is not being implemented or enforced. Can each of the witnesses tell me, if they could design a structure around road safety that reaches local authorities and that has the leadership, how would they structure it and what would they reform?

I worked in local government for ten years back at a time when, if you were building a road from Galway to Athlone, you were dealing with three or four local authorities. It was hugely cumbersome and hugely bureaucratic - nothing got built. Then along came the National Roads Authority and streamlined that whole process with an overarching remit, legislative powers and resources to be able to allow us to build connectivity across our country in so many different areas. That is what is needed. Local authorities do wonderful work, the active travel units within them do wonderful work, but they need to have leadership at national level. We need leadership, encouragement and resources happening at national level. Then the road safety aspect has to be covered by one individual, one entity, who has the power to call out malperformance and drive this on. Ms Bheilbigh spoke of the evidence. All we have to do is look across to Wales. It went 14 months from legislation to having the default 30 km/h - 14 months from beginning to end - and meanwhile we are pushing it out for perhaps the next two to three years. God only knows how long it is going to take.

Rightly there is a laser focus in local authorities on delivery of housing. That same focus does not seem to be there when it comes to basic road safety for the people who live in those communities. That can come from the Minister’s office to restructure local authority active travel units to ensure that road safety is prioritised in the same manner that we prioritise housing.

Local authorities are responsible for the delivery of over 1,000 services across the board. There are always priorities. Housing is a key priority at the minute for delivery, as is every other service. Through the Age Friendly Ireland work, we have strategic alliances to bring those key agencies to the table and have that discussion, particularly when we are consulting and ensuring the voices of elected representatives are there as well as the citizens, the business community and the State agencies. It is really important everyone has a place to participate. From our perspective, there has to be more investment in that and resources in local authorities.

I thank everyone for their input so far. I echo Deputy Ahern on lauding South Dublin County Council on the south Dublin cycling infrastructure it is putting in place. It really is world-leading. Something I commend it on is how it has learned about consultation and bringing people with it. We are getting huge buy-in now on those things and avoiding a lot of the backlash we have spoken about in certain areas. That is a really good thing.

One part of the safety conversation which is probably not as acute or magnified as the very rightly called-out fatalities on the roads is the area of maintenance. As a local councillor I had, and I am sure all of us have had, reams of complaints about footpath maintenance as well as road maintenance but also cycle track maintenance, which is a real challenge coming into focus, as well as hedging and brambles in particular, especially in Dublin. There will be a cycle track that goes alongside a hedge which has been put in beside the path, quite rightly, but then the hedge alongside it is not maintained as well. I would like witnesses’ views on that. Where do they see variability across the country around that maintenance. That is very much seen as a roads issue. If a hedge is blocking the visibility of a road, it is cut within a week whereas for cycle lanes, it is another issue.

It often has to come from the parks budget as well. We got one of the things in to clean our cycle lane in Galway and it was an absolute game-changer.

It was actually treacherous where we did have the few cycle lanes. They were covered in grit because they were so close to the road. Once we got that maintenance in and the glass was cleaned up, it was like the broken windows thing, once it was kept clean - and places like Miller's Lane were regularly cleaned - we had less antisocial behaviour because it was kept on top of.

Car parking and lorries parking on footpaths is a huge issue. We are spending millions of euro on new footpaths and the next day, once the cement is dry, they are being mounted by massive lorries. We are going to end up with broken and crumbling footpaths in another five years' time and we will have to redo it again.

Whatever we have instead of the RSA, I think a commissioner makes sense. However, another element we are missing out on is private planning development and the road safety and permeability aspect that goes into that. For example, if I am an older person and want to go out and get the bus, at the moment there is a huge problem in Galway where you might have to walk a kilometre to get out of the estate to get the bus. That needs to become part of our transport planning as well so that those standards apply to private developments. Outside my school, the issue is that the road we want to build safe schools on is on a private road, so we are very limited there.

We work very closely with them on county development plans and the national planning framework because the proximity to services is imperative, but so too is the infrastructure around developments so that we are not sticking things out in greenfield sites without any connectivity. That is really important, but I think-----

I spoke earlier about the role for community engagement. Where there are potholes or brambles overgrowing, are people reporting it? We need to have a very close working relationship with communities so that they can phone in to their local authority and say: "There is an issue here. Can you come out and fix it?" There is the fixmystreet website, but we could do more to promote community engagement with local authorities and their elected members at a local level to identify and resolve those local issues.

Towards the end of the previous Government, a major restructuring of the RSA was agreed at Cabinet. The RSA was to keep that independent advocacy part and the service delivery elements that it currently does were to be dealt with separately. That was negotiated over a long period, and those were tough negotiations at Cabinet, but it did result from an independent review of what the RSA was doing. From what I can see that process has been pretty much abandoned and I know this is at a time when some organisations, including some here, are saying they do not have confidence in the RSA. I know the Minister has spoken about making some changes to the RSA and that will be enough, but I want to get the views of the organisations. Is it enough? Is it about just making minor to mid-level changes to the RSA, or do we need to do something far more radical to make it, or some similar version, fit for purpose?

The Indecon reported highlighted that the RSA is not fit for purpose. The Dublin Commuter Coalition absolutely does not have confidence in it. The problem is that structurally it is there to make sure that cars pass their NCT. They may not necessarily be safe to be on the road, but they meet a certain metric. Equally, it is there to make sure that people have their driver's licences sorted out, but it is not even doing that well.

As I said in my opening statement, this is an organisation that already has an annual deficit of €20 million and it is going to grow to €45 million in 2033. Simply speaking, it is not even generating the funding to cover the things it is doing and the things it is focusing on are not affecting road safety.

The problem is that within phase two of the Vision Zero plan, the restructuring of the RSA is one of the key deliverable items within that. If we are trying to meet what is now 118 fewer road deaths per year without hitting the key actions within that plan, it is impossible to do so. As far as we are concerned, the RSA restructure needs to happen and, if it does not, it will be on the Minister's head if people continue to get seriously hurt or die on our roads.

I echo what Mr. Cullen said. It needs radical, courageous political will to create an entity that actually delivers on road safety. Whether that somehow resides within the RSA when it is split into separate entities, I do not know. I would argue that we need a completely independent road safety commissioner, but we cannot continue on the route we are on right now. It is just not working.

We have a comprehensive submission that rationalises the restructuring of the RSA and I am happy to send it on. It is clearly laid out in the Indecon review what needs to happen. I just cannot believe that the Minister is rolling back on this also. It just seems that the rug has been pulled from under all of this progress that we were making towards safer roads.

Most of our implementation has been through An Garda Síochána and we are just rolling our sleeves up and getting on with it. We are rolling out road safety events. Older people have told us what they want. They have come up with very practical, cost-neutral things to do with schools, but have also made recommendations, whether it is about overhangs on roads, footpath maintenance or driver behaviour.

From our perspective, that is the way we are going. We trying to work on the implementation side of things, but I do think there needs to be more of a focus on the messaging out there and probably more leadership in that space. I know that Cycling Ireland has called for a commissioner and there are different recommendations going forward, but, for us, we are working at a local level with An Garda Síochána. We are also working with the RSA at a national level, but not as much as with An Garda Síochána, which has been a stellar contributor to a lot of the initiatives we have implemented.

I thank the witnesses. Time management is one of my main jobs.

Good man, you have done great.

Even though Ciarán Cannon always respected the clock when he was a Member of Dáil Éireann, I notice that since he is no longer a Member, he is the one who consistently goes over the clock.

I want to make some concluding remarks. This was very worthwhile. It is the first of a number of hearings and we really appreciate that the witnesses, who are the voices of a number of vulnerable groups, came in today. We will have representatives from other vulnerable groups in next week. We will have victim advocacy groups in the following week and we will have a lot of engagement with the RSA, the Garda Commissioner, the assistant commissioner who has responsibility for roads policing and both Ministers. We have a schedule of meetings between now and probably early April.

We talked a lot about statistics today. I want to put on the record that I am conscious, as is everybody in this room, that behind every one of those statistics is a family grieving. In terms of my leadership of this committee and this particular project, if I can call it that, those victims and their families are at the centre of what we all do.

Just reflecting on my notes, Age Friendly Ireland talked a lot about stronger community engagement. Ms McGuigan mentioned stronger community engagement, road safety committees, community safety partnerships, road safety roadshows, cultural change, high-vis clothing, maintenance, education and intergenerational initiatives. Ms McGuigan also mentioned reviving the green cross code, the scaling up of age-friendly towns and walk-about audits.

Cycling Ireland talked about the creation of an independent road safety commissioner, someone who has real authority and the resources to co-ordinate things. It is very fragmented at the moment; there is no doubt about that. The call for the immediate implementation of a default 30 km/h urban speed limit was consistent across a number of groups.

I spoke about it myself, but everybody agrees that there is a need to properly resource and restore road policing numbers. As I said, driver behaviour matters and enforcement shapes driver behaviour. One thing we did not touch on today, and it is another key element, is that members of An Garda Síochána need to have access to data on the side of the road and that comes back to how we capture data. We have a situation in this country whereby we have mismatches. Individuals are disqualified from driving in court and those disqualifications are linked to an incorrect driver simply because of mismatches and the way we record the data. Again, that is a matter for the RSA as well, but it is very important. We also talked about rapidly scaling up automated enforcement.

Mr. Cullen of the Dublin Commuter Coalition highlighted the structural shortcoming of the RSA. He talked about funding and called for clearer accountability around outcomes. He also strongly criticised the delay in implementing the default 30 km/h zones in built-up areas.

The Irish Cycling Campaign's chairperson, Ms Bheilbigh, talked about infrastructure, protecting cycling routes, safe crossing and enforcing street design, consistent enforcement, expanded use of red-light cameras and speed cameras and the need to deliver lasting behavioural change.

She also called for the immediate implementation of default 30 km/h speed limits.

I thank all our our witnesses. I thank you for the work you do and for your advocacy. We will keep in touch. The witnesses are free to make any further submissions to the committee here. We hope to have our report maybe by the end of May - no pressure. I thank everyone and I now bring this meeting to a conclusion.