The purpose of today's meeting is to resume our discussion on road safety. On behalf of the committee, I am very pleased to welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Seán Canney, along with his officials.

I will read out some notes on privilege. 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, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative 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.

Earlier this year, the committee decided unanimously to prioritise road safety, particularly in light of the number of fatalities last year, which was the highest in a number of years, with almost 190 lives lost. Regrettably, as of today, 80 lives have been lost so far this year. We are all conscious that behind every statistic is a family and community who are grieving and devastated by loss.

Our structured work plan began in February. We have met quite a number of stakeholders, including vulnerable road users and representatives of cycling bodies, pedestrian and walking groups, motorcycle groups and, in particular, victim impact groups. I wish to refer in particular to the Irish Road Victims Association and the PARC Road Safety Group. We have met academics, representatives from the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and Alcohol Action Ireland, and other road user representative bodies like the Irish Road Haulage Association.

Our work will culminate in a number of weeks. We are meeting representatives of the Road Safety Authority, RSA, in two weeks' time. Our final meeting in the set of focused meetings will be with the Garda Commissioner and the assistant commissioner on 15 July. Of course, all of this work will culminate in a practical report, which we hope to publish in September, with clear recommendations for the Government and relevant agencies.

That is just some context. I really appreciate the Minister of State's presence here today. I invite him to make his opening statement.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the other members of the committee for inviting me here this morning. I welcome the opportunity, along with my officials, to engage on the issue of road safety.

The successful completion of the road safety strategy, coupled with positive changes in driver behaviour, is a model that works and has delivered positive road safety outcomes in Ireland for almost 30 years. In 1998, implementation began on the first national road safety strategy. The 1997 figure of 472 fatalities fell to 162 by 2012 and to 133 by 2021, the lowest number ever recorded since records began in 1959.

In addition, it is important to note that the preliminary figures on road fatalities for 2025, released by the European Commission in March, ranked Ireland in the top five EU countries for the lowest number of deaths per million of population. However, I acknowledge that, unfortunately, more recent trends are less positive and the gains that we made are beginning to slip. Last year saw an increase in road deaths, with 188 fatalities recorded. It is imperative that we reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads and return to the progress of previous years.

With that in mind, I want to update the committee on where we are with matters. The current national framework for road safety is the road safety strategy for the period 2021 to 2030. The strategy aligns with EU and UN targets and is based on a safe systems approach. It aims to reduce road deaths and serious injuries by 50% this decade and to achieve Vision Zero, or as close as possible to no deaths or serious injuries on Irish roads, by 2050.

The strategy is being implemented in three phases. The phase 1 action plan ran until the end of 2024 and included some notable achievements. These include the sharing of insurance data with An Garda Síochána, the expansion of the use of safety cameras, the launch of the safe routes to school programme, mandatory drug testing at the scene of serious collisions, mandatory roads policing hours for front-line Garda members and the completion of the speed limit review.

Following a review of the phase 1 plan, the phase 2 plan adopts a more targeted approach. The plan includes 12 transformative actions that have the potential to greatly enhance road safety in Ireland. These actions are supported by a further 77 supporting actions. The actions set out in the phase 2 action plan are defined across seven priority interventions, which have been developed and adapted in accordance with the specific road safety needs of Ireland.

Some of the key actions include the following: investing significantly in new and improved active travel and public transport; increasing the use of technology for road safety purposes, such as expanding the safety camera network and increasing the range of offences enforceable by cameras, as well as promoting and implanting intelligent transport infrastructure; expanding network safety analysis on the road network to identify high-risk locations, guide investment decisions and prioritise safety interventions, including for local road networks; implementing in full all actions of the phase 2 action plan based on the 2023 speed limit review; and reviewing and overhauling our learning-to-drive curriculum.

On oversight, my Department is responsible for the central co-ordination of the road safety strategy and the phase 2 action plan for the period 2025 to 2027. Delivery of this action plan is overseen at ministerial level by the road safety leadership group, which I chair. This group is attended by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration. It comprises senior officials from the key road safety partners, including An Garda Síochána, the RSA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the National Transport Authority, NTA, the Courts Service, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, the Health and Safety Authority and local authorities.

The group meets quarterly to review and discuss progress on the delivery of the 12 primary actions. This approach, with multiple agencies working together, is aligned with best practice in other European countries. The road user safety forum also continues to meet and support the implementation of the strategy. We are making progress in this area.

On 29 April, I published the first national safety camera strategy, which provides the framework for increased deployment of cameras across the network in both urban and rural locations to assist with the enforcement of a wide range of road traffic offences. In the first instance, it is focused on speed, red light-running and bus lane infringements, but it will be scaled up over time to include, for example, programme for Government commitments around camera enforcement of seat belts and mobile phone offences.

The strategy sets out a partnership approach for camera deployment and enforcement between An Garda Síochána, the TII and the NTA. It proposes that TII take responsibility for the management of fixed and average speed cameras in partnership with An Garda Síochána, which will continue to be responsible for the enforcement of camera-detected speed offences. The NTA would assume the primary responsibility for both management and enforcement functions for urban traffic management offences.

A delivery-focused camera enforcement oversight group has been established and is chaired by the CEO of the National Transport Authority, Ms Anne Shaw. This group comprises senior leaders from An Garda Síochána, the NTA, TII, the RSA, the Courts Service and the local authority sector, and will be responsible for progressing the strategy. It will report to the leadership group on progress.

Moving on to road safety legislation, we are moving forward with a significant legislative programme. Work on the National Vehicle and Driver File Bill is progressing. This Bill includes 11 separate provisions designed to modernise road safety enforcement, improve the use of data and address identified gaps in road safety legislation.

Some of the key provisions in the Bill include restoring a clear legislative basis for local authorities to directly receive and process road collision data and allowing for a jury to consider a charge of careless driving where the defendant is acquitted of dangerous driving, addressing a gap identified in Mr. Justice Haughton's report into the tragic death of Shane O'Farrell.

On 3 April 2026, new regulations, known as Grace’s law in memory of Grace Lynch, came into effect. These regulations fully ban the use of scramblers in public places and enhance and clarify Garda powers of enforcement. The Department is engaging with the Department of justice and An Garda Síochána on powers of seizure and detention in relation to the new regulations, including the fees applicable to seized vehicles.

We are also working on the next road traffic Bill, including measures on graduated speeding penalties and camera enforcement of mobile phone and seatbelt offences. In addition, we are working with the Law Reform Commission on consolidating road traffic law for the first time since 1961. This will make the law clearer and more consistent.

I mentioned earlier that the first phase of changes under the speed limit review have happened. The change in the default speed limit on rural roads from 80 km/h to 60 km/h, took effect on 7 February 2025. This change affected 82,000 km, or 80%, of the road network.

Local authorities are now reviewing existing speed limits on roads in built-up and urban areas and will, where appropriate, implement lower speed limits including the introduction of a 30 km/h speed limit, such as on roads in cities and towns. Local authorities have been directed to conclude this work and have the new speed limits operational by 31 March 2027.

We continue to invest in infrastructure projects across our road networks. Budget 2026 provides funding of €1.72 billion for national, regional and local roads including for road safety measures - an increase of €211 million on 2025. This funding will support safer road design, junction upgrades and the roll-out of new safety technology.

It should also be noted that for 2026, the RSA has once again ring-fenced €18 million for road safety public interest work including awareness raising and education activities. It is important that we continue to highlight and raise awareness of the risk of speeding, driving under the influence of drink or drugs, driving while distracted and not wearing a seatbelt while on our roads.

In conclusion, I welcome officials from the Department who are with me here today: Keith Walsh, assistant secretary with responsibility for roads policy and investment; Jan-Claire McNeill, principal officer in the road safety division; and Ross Hattaway, principal officer in the driver and traffic regulation division. I thank the Chair and the members for facilitating the session this afternoon and I look forward to our discussion.

I thank the Minister of State. I am going to move immediately to questions from members. I am proposing an initial seven-minute slot, and I hope that we will have a follow-up of an additional three minutes in the second session.

I wish the Minister of State a good morning. We have been meeting for six months on the issue of road safety and will publish a report, following these hearings, in September. We have heard a lot of detailed, often very disturbing evidence from experts in this field, but particularly from family members of people who have died due to road fatalities.

The organisations we have heard from are diverse. We have had everyone from cyclists to road hauliers in with us, but the one common thread, the one point that all of these diverse organisations agree on is that they do not have confidence in the Road Safety Authority any more. They have lost confidence in that organisation. Can the Minister of State tell me and these organisations why they are wrong to have lost confidence in the Road Safety Authority?

I thank the Deputy. An Indecon report was done on the workings of the Road Safety Authority. It concluded that the Road Safety Authority should be split up. When I came into office, I looked at the Indecon report and considered how we could split it up. I discussed it with my officials, and I came to the conclusion that the quickest way of getting reform was to reform from within. That reform has commenced. For instance, at the time when I arrived into the Department, the average national waiting time from driver tests was 27 weeks. It is now down to 11 weeks and was down to ten at one stage. This is because we tackled it head on. It just demonstrated to me that the RSA can do the business, but we need to make sure that they are doing it and are focused on it.

There was a depletion in its number of board directors. We have rectified that by appointing four new directors. The board is now just one shy of a full complement. The directors appointed have particular skill sets that are required on the board to help run the RSA.

I met the board, and I set out what reforms I want to see it carry out from within. There is a lot in that and the board is to come back to me next week, having taken on board what I said.

I thank the Minster of State.

I hope to publish what the reforms will be in the coming weeks. I am sorry for hogging the meeting but it is important to say that the RSA has a structure. If we were to dismantle that structure, how long would it take to put something new in place? That was a concern that I had as well.

The fundamental point that the Indecon report set out is that there is an organisation doing two important but very different things: trying to reduce the carnage on our roads and trying to deal with important issues like driver testing, etc. These are things that are very different and it was that fundamental divergence in the mission of this organisation that Indecon identified.

My concern is that when I asked the Minister of State the question, his first point was that we are doing the driver tests more quickly. What we are fundamentally concerned about is that 190 died on our roads last year, and 80 people have died on our roads this year. I do not think that it is good enough that the Minister of State's evidence of reform is shorter waiting times for the driver tests. That is not what our fundamental concern is. The reform from inside that the Minister of State is speaking about is not dealing with the fundamental issue that there is an organisation doing two different things and, from the evidence of the deaths on our roads, clearly is not able to focus on its central mission, which should be saving people's lives.

It is important that I point out at the start that we all have a responsibility in saving lives on our roads. The road users have a responsibility. Everybody who gets into a car and drives it is taking on that responsibility. The local authorities-----

With respect, the RSA is the body that the State has tasked with this issue and this is what we are focusing on today.

If the Deputy lets me finish, the Road Safety Authority is part of the solution, as is the general public. Within the RSA, the organisation is there and is capable of doing the education, the front of house work and all of the research that needs to be done because that feeds into the areas such as the driver-testing curriculum. An Garda Síochána, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the investment in our roads all feed into reducing numbers. It is not just one organisation that is responsible for reducing road deaths. Everybody has to help and I, as the Minister of State chairing the steering group, also have a responsibility to make sure that everybody is working together to do that.

We are going to be working on our report over the summer and will be listening to the Minister of State's testimony and the testimonies of all of these organisations, which, as I have said, are united on one common point, that is, they do not have confidence in the RSA any more. If we bring forward strong recommendations asking the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to reconsider their decision to scrap the reform plan for the RSA, are they open to reconsidering it?

Any proposal that comes from the committee will be looked at, and I hope that the committee will also be open to the reforms that we are going to put in place for the RSA, which will be published in the coming weeks.

What level of detail will we see in terms of the report that the Department is publishing in the next number of weeks?

Without pre-empting the report, we are looking at each facet within the RSA, how it has been doing its business, what changes we will make so that it can be managed better, what changes are being made and a timeline by which they will be introduced.

Will the Minister of State be proposing legislative changes to the RSA?

At the moment, we are not proposing legislative changes to the RSA. We are proposing changes and a different focus on some of the work it is doing.

The Minister of State referred to the national vehicle driver Bill in his statement that will allow local authorities to gain data on road traffic collisions in the area. When does he expect it to be before the House on Second Stage?

We had hoped to get it in before the summer recess. I understand it will be drafted by the summer recess and it will come before the House early in the new session-----

It will be September or October.

It will be September or October at the latest. I had hoped to bring it before the House but there were delays in drafting due to other legislation. It will be drafted and ready to go before the Dáil as soon as we come back, at the very latest.

I thank the Minister of State for coming before the committee today. To follow on from the comments on RSA reform, in response to a parliamentary question I submitted in March, he said he had directed his officials to prepare revised reform proposals and will present these to Government in the coming weeks. Some three months on, we are still in the dark in terms of his plans for the RSA. We are going in the wrong direction in terms of the road fatality numbers. The RSA in its current form is not fit for purpose. Given that it is now three months later and almost two years on from the initial report, why are we still waiting for detail? There is a lack of detail today about the specific reforms the Minister of State is proposing. That would cause a lot of concern. Why are we waiting so long? Why can he not give more detail on the reforms that are being proposed?

When I answered the parliamentary question I said we would prepare reforms. I met the board and my officials on a number of occasions. We are now at a stage where I expect to receive from my officials next week or the week after their revisions and the new way of doing business in the RSA. It is better to have it right than to rush it. It is very important that everybody understands that when changes are made that will be demonstrated in every aspect of the RSA and how it is working in respect of driving test centre , NCT certificates and all of that. The changes will address driver trainers and how all of that is done, how its real estate is managed, how its communication is done and how and when the reforms will happen. Some will happen very soon and some have already happened.

That will be published in the next two weeks.

I will present it to Government within the next two weeks.

Was the Minister of State's decision not to implement the recommendations of the Indecon report made against the advice of his officials?

Yes, as Minister of State, one makes decisions in the best interests of the people and on the day. I stand over my decision, which is a Government decision. I brought a decision to Government that we would not split the RSA because we feel we can reform it from within and keep the elements that are working well and improve those which are not working well fairly fast. If we split the RSA we would need legislation and all of that type of stuff. That is fine and dandy and sounds fine; it is a good soundbite. The former Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, mentioned all of the groups that the committee met, which I have met on a number of occasions. I will continue to meet and engage with them. It is important that I do that in the interests of making sure we do the right thing.

Given that it is almost two years on, we need to see those reforms come forward very quickly. The Minister of State met the Ireland-US Driver's License Exchange Campaign recently. It published a report. Are any actions being taken off the back of that meeting and the recommendations outlined in the report?

I met the group and saw some of its members earlier. It brought forward proposals and requests that I have looked at. I told them I would bring that to my officials and we would look at them and see how we could improve, if at all, the exchange of driving licences between the US and Ireland. Suffice to say, it is not quite as simple as it appears. If one EU county has an agreement with a state in America, it is not the case that Ireland, as an EU country, should automatically be in a position to accept that as an exchange policy. The overriding consideration goes back to the first thing everybody talks about, namely, safety on our roads. We have to make sure we have a very robust checking system for licences coming from other places. We are currently engaging with New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts on exchanges. It might be lost on people that in the case of driver licence exchanges, both parties have to be willing to engage in the process. We are engaging fairly will with New York. It is coming back with information on its system of driver testing so that we can make sure it is compatible with ours. The process with New Jersey is slower. We have had very little reaction from the third state. The bottom line in all of this is to make sure that when somebody exchanges a licence they are up to the standard we require in this country to keep our roads safe. That is my bottom line. People have cited other EU countries which have exchanged licences. Those arrangements go back to post-Second World War agreements with certain countries. I would like to think we are doing things right rather than doing them fast.

One proposal that the campaign has made concerns the reinstatement of expired Irish driver licences. An amendment to secondary legislation could allow the renewal of those licences that had been approved here previously. Is that something the Minister of State is considering?

The document and proposals we received from the group are all being looked at. We welcome proposals like that. We do not dismiss them; rather, we want to see what we can take from them in a positive tone. I welcome the fact that we got the report.

On speed cameras, the company GoSafe has the contract. In 2024, the State paid almost €18 million to GoSafe for the provision of 58 speed camera vans, which works out at €310,000 for the operation of each speed camera van per year. Has any consideration been given by the Department as to whether there might be a more cost-effective way to carry out that operation? Has there been engagement with the Garda on that?

To be clear, that contract is between the Garda and the company. It is does not involve the Department of Transport. In the times we live in, we are always looking at better ways of doing business to make things more efficient. The driver testing Bill Deputy O'Gorman mentioned addresses cases where people are caught by speed camera for speeding and go to court. The person operating the van also has to go to court to make a statement. The proposed legislation would allow certification from that person to be sufficient for the court, thereby freeing up people to be out on the road to do the job they are supposed to be doing rather than trying to follow up court cases and spending all day in court waiting for cases to come up. Those kind of efficiencies have to be considered.

The Minister of State is very welcome and I thank him for coming before the committee. As the Chair said, we have deliberated on this for six months. Groups representing all kinds of vulnerable road users, including motorbike groups, road haulage representatives, bus drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, victims of road collisions and their families, have come before the committee. The overwhelming view has been that there is no confidence in the RSA. I am baffled that the Minister of State is willing to say he has confidence in it. The Indecon report looked at reform. I mean no offence at all and I am not being rude to the RSA or those it employs, but as an organisation it does not seem to be functioning.

The Department's report mentioned the strategy around safety cameras. The RSA was never mentioned in the context of camera deployment. TII and the NTA are mentioned. Even above the camera enforcement oversight group, the NTA is referenced as having responsibility. What is the role of the RSA? I do not think it is managing its role. The authority is what its title states. How long is the Minister of State going to give the reforms that are going to work from within? Has he given a timeframe for that? When we have the recommendations from this report, which, we hope, will come in by September, they will overwhelmingly reflect what the witnesses coming before the committee have indicated, namely that they have no confidence in the RSA. When will the Minister of State decide that things have become so serious that it is time to take a cross-departmental approach or appoint a commissioner for road safety. Is that something he has considered?

The very first thing I said was that the RSA is not responsible for putting up cameras on roads. Its function is, basically, number one-----

Why is that not its function?

It is a function of the Garda to enforce laws. We must let the Garda enforce the laws. People think that the RSA - and perhaps "authority" is the wrong name-----

The name also includes the words "road safety".

It does not have the remit to do everything about road safety.

That is why there needs to be reform.

If the Senator wants to say that the RSA should be out on the roads stopping people for speeding, what would the Garda do?

Perhaps the RSA should be gone.

No.

Perhaps there needs to be a commissioner for road safety. Perhaps there needs to be a full, new structure looking across the Departments of justice, education and Health and ensuring that they are all working together. There needs to be a commissioner who has oversight and full responsibility for road safety.

That is what we have under a different guise. We have a leadership group of which the RSA is a part.

That group only meets quarterly.

I chair the quarterly meetings, but it meets more regularly than that. There are also break-out groups. For instance, there is a group doing the strategy on cameras. The Garda has a role, which is enforcement of the laws that we, as legislators, bring in. The RSA does not have control over that. The RSA manages the testing of drivers. It manages the testing of vehicles to make sure they are road worthy. It manages tax, insurance and all that type of stuff, and it is also involved in the area of education.

I know, but I suppose-----

Sorry, I am just going to finish because I want to answer the question. It is important. The Senator talks about putting in a road commissioner. That is exactly the same thing as what the RSA is doing. You cannot give the commissioner the power to enforce laws. The latter is left to the Department of justice and the Garda.

Would the Minister of State agree-----

That is the difficulty.

-----that the RSA is not doing its job? It is not working. Whatever it is doing now, even with regard to the report that is coming out, is not working because the number of road fatalities is going up.

I am serious when I say that if we expect any one entity to bring down the number of road deaths on its own, we are at nothing. The road deaths and collisions that occur in this country are the responsibility of everyone who uses the roads. They are the responsibility of the Garda to do the enforcement. They are the responsibility of the NTA, TII and local authorities to ensure the roads are safe.

I know, but where is the oversight? You would imagine that an authority on road safety would have oversight of and responsibility for bringing together all those different parts, including the Garda, TII, cyclists and vulnerable groups. Where is the oversight? All the witnesses coming before the committee think that the RSA does not listen to them. They give feedback, and in comparison with other European countries, the RSA does not listen to recommendations. The Minister of State has a forum. Is that right?

Yes.

Who are the members of the forum? I am sure the Minister of State is hearing all the time that there is no confidence in the RSA.

The Senator is saying that even after doing these reforms, there will be no confidence in it. I ask her to please give us a chance and see the reforms first. See what is published and how it is working.

Does the Minister of State have a timeline for that reform?

There are many different reforms. There is not just one reform. There are so many different things that have to be reformed. There will be a timeline for each of those reforms to happen. We will then be monitoring how they perform.

What if they do not change?

We do not pre-empt anything. I am confident that when we put in these changes, led by Anne Graham, as chair of the board, and her directors, we will see changes that will be effective and will, with all the other organisations involved, help to reduce the number of collisions and fatalities on the roads and the number of people who incur life-changing injuries. That is the bottom line for everybody.

The witnesses who have come before the committee have said that they have lost confidence in the RSA. That is on the Minister of State's head.

That is absolutely right. When the Senator says they have lost confidence, that is why we are reforming the organisation.

I wish the Minister of State a good morning and thank him for being here for this important discussion. As a committee, we have done a lot of work and had a great deal of engagement. I have done the same at local level. What I would like to highlight, propose and discuss relates to the responses of the Garda, local authorities and all of the State agencies and authorities to fatal accidents or road safety incidents. I have been contacted by the families of young people from Ballina who, tragically, lost their lives in or around my hometown, very close to where I grew up. There have been a number of tragic fatalities within the past two years. A very difficult thing for these families to take is the delay in response and intervention. I would like to clarify whether in situations where there is a fatality, there is a delay in response from the local authority or the Department because of legal issues that may pertain to intervention. An issue with safety at a location may implicate a legal proceeding in the context of a fatality.

There has been a breakdown in communications. We are an Oireachtas joint committee, and joined-up thinking is, as the Minister of State mentioned earlier, the only way that we can reduce fatalities and address safety issues across the country. There has been a breakdown in communications in respect of near fatalities and incidents that are being reported. There used to be a mechanism whereby the Garda would report incident's to the RSA. However, because of the GDPR, or some other ridiculous excuse, that has now stopped. I am asking for that to be reintroduced.

As part of our report, if I have support from the committee, I will ask that where there is regular reporting by An Garda Síochána of issues of road safety, those issues are reported both to the RSA, open source and on the public record, and to the local authority, whether through the municipal district or the new local safety partnerships in order that, as public representatives, we have full sight of near misses and reporting of near fatalities. In some of the examples I have mentioned in my hometown, we did not have sight of the fact that there had been multiple near incidents or incidents where there was a collision and it was all tidied up and nothing was reported. As public representatives, we did not have full sight of that. Sadly, we have families that are grieving.

They are actively campaigning and will not relent until there is proper change and that there will be an intervention when near misses are reported. Sadly, that was not the case in the many examples I have highlighted. There have been fatalities at these junctions. I know there is a lot in those questions, but I would welcome the Minister of State's consideration.

I will start by talking about the sharing of information. When an accident happens, collision data is collected by the Garda. One of the problems the Senator alluded to is the sharing of that information with the local authorities which have responsibility for the roads. Under national vehicle and driver file Bill 2026, which is legislation we are drafting, local authorities will have direct access to that data. They used to have it-----

Will public representatives have it?

It will be on the-----

I am asking because-----

The RSA publishes that collision-----

It does not. It only does so in the case of collisions involving fatalities; it does not publish data on collisions in general. I stand ready to be corrected on that.

Information on fatalities and serious injuries is published. One of the big gaps is that local authorities cannot access that information directly for reasons relating the GDPR. The new Bill will overcome that problem and local authorities will have direct access to the information.

There was a question about near misses. The Senator spoke about things almost happening. That is what I call a near miss. In my county, we have places where people will have a near miss or a minor tip, and this would be regular enough. What happens there depends on what road people are on. If it is a local road, the local authority should look at how best to improve it. Investment is going into that area through the community involvement scheme and the low-cost accident scheme to improve junctions and sight-lines That is happening all the time.

Those mechanisms are useful for funding. What I mean by near misses are situations where there could have been fatalities. We all have examples. If this information is not on the agenda of a municipal district meeting, councillors cannot prioritise different safety projects. Public representatives need full sight of the relevant information. We do not have that currently. What I am proposing or asking for is that through either the local safety partnerships - the joined-up mechanism involving the Garda and the county councils - or at municipal district level, the information be provided in a monthly update of incidents reported by the Garda to the local authority. This would give us clear sight of where these near misses are happening.

I accept what the Senator is saying. In the past, if I got reports that something had nearly happened, if somebody had almost got a belt in a car that would have killed them because they were stationary on the road and turning right or whatever, we would have got on to the Garda, through the municipal district, and had meetings. Traffic monitoring would then be done by the Garda to see what was happening on the road in question and whether things were needed to slow down traffic, improve a junction or whatever. That mechanism is there.

What the new Bill will do will be to make sure that whatever data the Garda publishes in terms of collisions can be directly accessed by local authorities. At the moment, local authorities cannot get that data directly; they have to go via a circuitous route to find out about it. This is what we are trying to do to resolve the situation.

I thank the Senator.

Will the information be published generally or in kind of a back-end context?

I am sorry, I just have one more point. I will come back to what the Senator said.

I ask the Minister of State to be brief.

The Garda publishes its statistics on collisions. I do not know how quickly it does that after an accident. There is also a case where an accident occurs and has to be fully investigated by the Garda to see identify the cause. That is important. When we talk about responses following an accident, there is a process there by which the Garda take charge of the investigation and then continue it.

What the Senator is talking about are responses if somebody says there is a dangerous bend and asks if the council or some other body can do something about it in circumstances where that is not acted upon and an accident happens. I think that is the Senator's concern.

I thank the Minister of State. We can come back to this question in the second round. I call Senator Collins.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. As everybody has said, the committee has been doing this work for a while. We have been looking at all aspects of road safety. Whether it comes down to alcohol or drug use while driving, speeding or people being on the phone, the biggest thing is that in the absence of a deterrent, a lot of those habits are not going to change or are not going to change quickly enough.

Has the Minister of State got a plan for an increase in roads policing? I see myself that if there is not the chance of being caught, then people are less likely to change their habits. If people are inclined to have a drink and get behind the wheel - which I completely do not agree with - and do not think they are ever going to be caught, it seems that habit will not change and people will continue on doing what they are doing because there is no consequence to doing so for themselves. There are, of course, consequences if they get into an accident and ruin somebody else’s life or family. Is there an increase coming down the line for roads policing?

I agree with the Senator. We can have all the legislation in the world, but if it is not effective and there are no consequences for breaking the law, then we are not making much progress.

Yes.

The biggest problem we have is that we all know we do not have enough gardaí out with the roads policing unit. The numbers are increasing. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Jim O’Callaghan, about this issue, and we have had meetings with the Garda Commissioner. Numbers will be increasing.

It is also important to say that with new technologies, we will probably have more efficient enforcement with fewer gardaí, if the Senator knows what I am saying.

Yes.

For instance, the camera strategy is one way in which we can detect people on their phones or not wearing seat belts without having to have gardaí physically out there. I hear what the Senator is saying, though, and I agree with it wholly. We are bringing in new legislation and we are going to try to give clarity to the Garda. Giving such clarity to the Garda is fine, but we have also had an ongoing discussion with the Department of Justice in relation to the numbers of gardaí out doing the roads policing. It is a difficulty. I believe, however, that gardaí are doing a lot of good work. When we see the campaigns the force has and the number of people who do not have insurance being caught-----

Yes, insurance.

-----or are speeding at the weekend, we say to ourselves that we need to go back four steps and educate the children in national schools and all of that.

It is about starting with the education. I agree 100%.

The statistics indicate that approximately 80% - I will not give the exact number - of road fatalities usually happen on secondary or rural roads. Does the Minister of State have any plans in this regard? I live in County Limerick, and I know what rural roads are like. I know that at a certain time of year, hedges will have grown but the point of their being cut has not been reached. When you come to a crossroads, you literally have to move out onto the road to see if anything is coming in either direction. When you are driving along, you also do not know how far in the ditch is because the hedges come out so far. If a big truck, tractor or other massive vehicle comes towards you then, you are trying to gauge whether you can move in far enough. Has any money been put aside for the maintenance of rural roads in order to try to reduce the statistics in that context?

I come from a rural area, so I understand what the Senator is talking about. When the Department of Transport provides funding to the local authorities, money is provided within that context for a number of issues to try to help. As I said earlier, there are the low-cost accident scheme and the community involvement scheme. There is also a budget for verge trimming. Then again, verges have to be cut within the season. They cannot be cut at certain times of the year. Maybe the time when we need it most is the time we cannot do it.

Yes. That is the time it is not being done.

We also have a situation where money is being invested in these roads on an ongoing basis to improve and resurface them. It is also important for people to take into their thinking that every one of these roads now has a speed limit of 60 km/h and not 80 km/h.

If the Cathaoirleach will indulge me for a second, another important thing is that a speed limit does not mean that people have to drive at that speed. People should drive in a controlled manner.

No, but, again, I go back to roads policing. A speed van or Garda checkpoint will never be seen on a rural road.

The speed limit could be reduced to 20 km/h but they will still drive at whatever speed they are comfortable and they will never be caught. If there are no consequences, it is hard to get people to change their habits. I see many people skill driving at 80 km/h where there are 60 km/h speed limits. I have never passed a checkpoint or speed van or been breathalysed in my entire life of driving on the roads of County Limerick. I have never been stopped by the Garda. It is not that I have an innocent face or that I am the perfect driver, but there just is not anyone to catch or stop people.

I do not know who decides where the speed vans go. They seem to be in the appropriate area to make the most money. I could be very cynical about it but they do not seem to be sitting in the black spots. They seem to be where vehicles come off the motorway into the single lane, where it goes from 120 km/h to 100 km/h. Speed vans are sitting just around the band where they catch people who are going a little bit over 100 km/h or have not got down from 120 km/h yet. Maybe that needs to be looked at to see if vans are being put in the right place for the right reason or if it is to make more money.

I will say categorically that speed vans are put out to slow people down. They are a deterrent. I have seen them on local and regional roads, where they have been very effective. I often get complaints from people who were caught and who were indignant that they were caught speeding. The proof is in the pudding. Of course I would like to see more enforcement on rural roads. As I say, 80% of our road network is rural roads, so we need to look at that. The strategy for where cameras and vans are put is based on the data that the Garda has about where incidents happen or where they know that speeding is happening regularly. We have a combination of the local roads, motorways and regional roads too. it is important that there is a balance in how we enforce that.

Before I get to road safety, which is hugely important, I have a couple of questions for the Minister of State. I thank him for being with us. Members of the Irish-US drivers' licence campaign are here today. What is the Minister of State doing about expired licences for people coming home? He said he will meet his counterparts during the EU Presidency. A stroke of a pen can put a lot of this right. Unfortunately, it has not, over the last number of years. Are we moving in the right direction for that to happen?

I think I answered this question earlier. We got the report from the group. I welcomed getting it. We are reviewing it at the moment. I wanted to set out clearly that we have to make sure that whatever we do with regard to licence changes, it is done with road safety in mind. At the moment, we are engaging with three states in America, namely, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. We are getting a fair response from New York's road safety people, not as much with New Jersey, and very little with Massachusetts. You have to have two parties that will tango. I know that the report which was prepared cited a number of EU countries which already have agreements with states in America. Some of them are historical, going back to the Second World War, and some are for different reasons, but at the same time, we have to interrogate the licensing arrangements in these countries before we have the exchange.

We also have to look at how they do their business and if it is compatible with how we do our business. Sometimes, it can be a slow process but I would prefer to be slow and sure than to have a problem. We need to make sure that the integrity of the licence and the safety of that licence in this country is kept to the highest standard possible. We will continue that. Our officials are going through the report to see what we can do to take on the recommendations that have been made. I met the group and will be back to it again.

Drink, drugs, and speed are massive problems for road safety and cause deaths on our roads. There is no point in anybody saying otherwise. The condition of our roads is equally culpable as far as I am concerned. I will be a bit parochial in my questioning. On the N71 in west Cork, there are no passing bays or bypasses, leaving a dreadful position where motorists are held behind a vehicle such as a tractor for 20 or 25 minutes, and there is no future thinking about money being spent on the road. Will it happen? Will the bypass be made? The passing bays are the most important, so that motorists can go at 100 km/h or under, and not have to travel at 27 km/h for ten or 15 minutes.

While I am talking about the condition of the roads, some of the roads in west Cork are in the most appalling state. I was told last week that in a constituency where there are two party leaders and a Minister of State and where people cannot drive properly on a road, something is wrong somewhere. I am getting it in the neck myself, so that is understandable. On the road between Ballydehob and Bantry or Ballydehob and Skibbereen, during the winter people would drive on the other side of the road if they want to drive in safety, rather than driving on the part of the road they are supposed to drive on. The point I am making is that the local authority would fix the road if it had the money, but it does not.

Second, the pothole repairs are scandalous. The machines present are old things at the front of a lorry that splash out a bit of tar and chips, and the next day I get a call from a constituent who had begged me to get the road fixed to say that the road is broken and the road is open again. There is a JCB pothole repair vehicle. It is present around Europe and the UK. Ireland seems to be very reluctant to bring it in. JCB has offered to give a machine to any local authority and provide a driver to train the local authority staff to drive these machines. It comes in, clears a road, puts down a new surface properly, and walks away, instead of the system we have in Ireland at the moment, where people spray a patch of tar and walk away with an exorbitant amount of money, and the same hole is back the next morning if there is a drop of rain.

Why are we not moving into the real world, as are Europe and the UK, by looking at these machines that can deliver clear, safe, pothole-free roads on which we can drive in great safety? As I said, on some of the roads on which I drive, especially in the winter, I have to go to the other side of the road. That is the height of danger. There is not enough of a budget. We are talking about verge-cutting, which is a huge issue. We should not be talking about cutting within season. Within season, inside a person's ditch, by all means, but to save a person's life, it should be all cut, at any time of night. I was in County Clare on a Sunday last year, and I had about an hour to spare before I had to go somewhere, and I saw the verges cut for miles. It was fantastic. There were clear roads. I know the Minister of State only has a minute to sum up. I ask him to address the conditions of the road, the JCB pothole repair machine, which I presume the Minister of State knows about, and the budget for west Cork, because it has a poor budget. We do not have a chance to get a passing bay, a bypass or proper road repair.

The local authorities get their funding for the roads from the Department of Transport. They make a request every year for money. Last year, we gave €250 million towards national roads for maintenance. We gave €700 million for regional and local roads and provided €14 million for 33 low-cost access schemes. These figures are increasing. Some €718 million was allocated and that funding is for road maintenance and renewal. It is then the responsibility of local authorities to spend that wisely and make sure they are getting value for money. I know the roads programme is developed by the local authority, brought to councillors and dealt with on that level. I know that ongoing issues arise, such as a weather event which leaves problems that did not exist before the weather event.

These are also the kinds of areas where funding is given. We have given a lot of money. The other thing in local areas is the safe routes to school programme. That is also being invested in to make sure there is safer access to schools for people in rural areas.

I asked a question about the JCB pothole machine.

The Deputy will have to go back to his local authority on that. We do not direct them as to what machines to use.

They are giving money that is being wasted.

I welcome that we are going to consolidate road traffic law. I welcome the national vehicle driver file Bill and Grace's law, but we need to see those progress with urgency. We repeatedly hear the Department has a lot of legislation on its slate. As we are not seeing it at this committee, I would like to see it.

In the area of enforcement, however, there is a serious disconnect. I know the Minister of State has already alluded to it. There is a serious disconnect when it comes to enforcement. We can have all the road traffic Bills we like, but if we are not enforcing them we have a serious issue. I have a constituent who was involved in an accident yesterday. The cause of the accident was a motorbike coming up in the cycle lane. She was turning right. The motorbike never saw her, and they collided. He ended up in hospital. She tried to report it to the gardaí, and they are not interested. They are simply not interested. They say it is an insurance matter. How are we recording this data? The fire brigade told her there is an accident at this same junction four times per month. That is simply not good enough. We need to have the data collected to know where we are having repeated accidents and we have to look at enforcement. We also have to look at road redesign. It is not good enough to say let it be and the insurance providers will deal with it. I want to know what the Minister of State is going to do to tackle persistent issues like that and ensure the data is being collected.

What the Deputy has described is something that would worry me if it were happening. I think the Garda has to attend these accidents. It is not just a near miss. A collision happened. It is not an accident. It should be investigated and recorded, and the data should be there.

What will the Minister of State and his Department do, with the Minister for justice, to make sure the Garda is doing this? It has to be joined up. We cannot be working in silos here.

I have ongoing discussions with the Minister for justice. He sits on the leaders group we have for road safety so issues like this can be dealt with. The Minister, Darragh O'Brien, and I have regular meetings with the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, the Department and An Garda Síochána on these issues. At the moment we are discussing scrambler regulations. We are hoping to have the Bill the Deputy mentioned ready for September. That relates to the sharing of data directly with local authorities. Moving on to the Deputy's next point that means they can engineer out what the problem is, if it is an engineering solution. The Department provided €718 million this year to local authorities for road maintenance and improvements, low-cost accident schemes, community involvement schemes and safe routes to school. We are increasing that money year on year.

I appreciate that but we need to see the actions in terms of ensuring that we are collecting the data so we can then put in place all of those measures the Minister of State is speaking about.

The legislation where the data will be directly accessible by local authorities will better inform them so they can make the case for additional money for specific items such as those the Deputy has highlighted.

This committee would welcome hearing what those actions are when the Minister of State speaks with the Minister for justice.

I will turn to traumatic brain injuries, TBIs. A letter was published in The Irish Times from a number of doctors from CHI. This follows on from a letter they wrote last year. They are concerned about traumatic brain injuries sustained during e-scooter accidents. Despite the fact that it is illegal for under-16s to use these e-scooters, despite the awareness campaign the RSA has run and despite all of the actions we have taken in the past year, we are still seeing huge issues. In fact, they are saying that TBIs have increased by 50% in the past 12 months. It is the main reason they are seeing for TBIs. What options is the Minister of State looking at? Will he consider mandatory licensing and insurance and, if necessary, an outright ban? This is not just hurting children and other users of e-scooters. It is also impacting on the people they collide with.

Yesterday the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and I had a meeting with the Minister, Jim O'Callaghan and the Tánaiste about these issues. The biggest issue with e-scooters, e-bikes and all of that is the sale of them, who buys them and who uses them. I have come across a case in which I went into a shop where I spotted an e-scooter at the door. I looked at the specification on it and it told me it would go 40 km/h or 50 km/h and do this that and the other. The shop it was in was a baby shop. It was selling buggies, prams and e-scooters. That set off red alarm bells all over the place for me. How in the name of God would they be trying to market them in a place like that? Parents have to understand that it is illegal for a child to be up on one of these. There is a speed limit on them. There is an increase in the number of them being used and they are of benefit to people. However, we need to make sure we understand that they will be registered and the person buying it will take responsibility. If somebody under age is up on an e-scooter that was bought by Grace Boland, she would be responsible for it and not the child. The medical evidence we have from CHI is very important to demonstrate the end result of this stupidity. We are working on that and looking at-----

The shop should also be sanctioned if it is selling e-scooters that are-----

This is what I was going to say. At the moment they are not doing anything illegal because you do not need to have a licence to sell these things. My attitude was how could anyone think these are all common commodities you can sell in the shop? I questioned it myself.

I have 20 seconds left. It is really important that we see the roll out of the 30 km/h speed limit. Local authorities are grappling with this. Is the Minister of State getting monthly updates from all local authorities about their progress? If not, will he please do so?

They have been directed and are going through the process at the moment. From the feedback I am getting they are progressing with them. They have been told that they all need to be in place and complete by March of next year.

This is my slot. I will zone in first of all on the leadership group. It is my understanding that the leadership group established under phase 2 of the action plan first met in November. My understanding is that it also met in February. Will the Minister of State confirm if it has met since February?

It met in March or April.

It has met three times since its establishment. He mentioned that the Minister for justice is part of that leadership group. In terms of those three meetings, can the Minister of State confirm if the Minister for justice attended in person or was it a Minister of State on behalf of the Minister for justice who attended? Deputy Canney's opening statement stated that it is attended by the Minister for justice. How many of those three meetings were attended by the Minister for justice?

I do not have that record, but I can remember Jim O'Callaghan being there and I can remember Niall Collins being there on occasion.

It was attended by the Minister. I am asking that because I want to zone in on the issue of enforcement and the strength of our roads policing unit. I fully support the national camera safety strategy. However, with alcohol being such a contributor to road fatalities, technology will not capture a drunk or drugged driver. We have seen the extent to which the numbers in our roads policing units are depleting from a high of approximately 1,050 in 2009 to somewhere around 641 in April. I saw numbers in the Dublin metropolitan region roads policing unit have reduced by 162. I mention Dublin because it had the highest number of road fatalities last year and so far this year as well. Enforcement shapes driver behaviour. I think the vast majority of drivers do not think they will be stopped or detected. If sanctions are not being enforced then behaviour will not change. The Minister of State mentioned ongoing discussions with the Minister for justice and the Garda Commissioner. What is his understanding of targets to increase numbers within our roads policing unit this year and over the next two or three years?

The last conversation we had was yesterday when we had a meeting about some of the issues that were raised here about e-scooters. Effectively, it comes back to legislation and the enforcement of it. We are constantly working to try to increase the numbers. We are putting pressure on.

Has the Garda Commissioner given the Minister of State any indication of what the targets are for increasing numbers in roads policing for the rest of this year? I am aware that 365 gardaí have graduated from Templemore so far this year. Are any specific targets being discussed in the Minister of State's conversations with the Minister for justice and the Garda Commissioner?

There was a target, which has not been met and we are now looking at how we can build up that number-----

The former Garda Commissioner was before this committee in October 2024 and committed to increasing the number in the roads policing unit by 150 by the end of last year. The assistant commissioner, Ms Gunn, in October last year confirmed that only 50% of those numbers were active. Are there clear commitments for this year and next year by the Garda Commissioner?

What we have to look at is the number of people who are being trained and what resources An Garda Síochána has to backfill people to come into the roads policing unit. It is a difficulty where there is a scarce commodity and there are competing interests.

It is important that we have clear targets during the lifetime of the Government - year on year - for the numbers in the roads policing unit. We need to get back to where we were in 2009.

I am not sure whether this is a matter for the Department of Transport or justice. It is the impound fee of €125. Some 3,000 vehicles were impounded in the month of December alone, of which 65% did not have insurance. That €125 fee has not changed since 2011. When people go to the pound to get a vehicle released, I am not sure whether they have to prove they have insurance as well as paying the €125. That is a separate issue, but what is the Minister of State's understanding of plans to increase the €125 fee?

Yesterday, as part of our discussions on scramblers and e-bikes and seizures, we talked about that, including what additional powers we could give to the courts for An Garda Síochána to charge additional money for storage as well as the release fee. We have to increase all of that and the Department-----

Are there plans to increase that fee before the end of the year?

We are working on that at the moment. Legislation might be needed to do it, but it is important that we do it because the fee is the consequence.

Yes, the fee has not increased since 2011. The committee will make a set of recommendations and that will be a clear one within them. I appeal to the Minister of State for that fee, which has not been increased since 2011, to be significantly increased. That needs to happen this year.

I will go back to the evidence given by PARC, and in particular by Ms Loraine Fehilly about the tragic death of her husband, Maurice, whom I knew personally. Ms Fehilly made a personal appeal to the committee on two different fronts. The first was that laws be aligned with Northern Ireland so that the maximum sentence for dangerous driving causing death would be increased from ten years to 14 years. Will the Minister of State comment on that? Does he support that call?

I do.

We talk about the legislative agenda. Are there plans this year, in the context of the roads traffic Bill, to increase the sentence from ten to 14 years?

This will be dealt with in the next road traffic Bill, which is coming in the next while.

That is positive. I welcome that commitment.

Ms Fehilly's second appeal was that, for an individual who is sentenced to a period in prison and disqualified from driving, the disqualification period should commence after the person is released from jail and that the disqualification period would not be served - I can never remember the correct word - while the individual-----

Concurrently.

------is in prison. Does the Minister of State support that?

I do, because the consequences of a crime of that nature have to be severe and if people are in prison, there is no additional pain attached to not being able to drive a car, because they cannot drive anyway.

Are there plans to deal with that in the upcoming road traffic Bill?

All these matters will be looked at under the road traffic Bill and appropriate changes will be put into it.

I welcome the Minister of State and thank him, as always, for his availability and for the support of his office. I will raise a few points.

Approximately one month ago, the Minister of State was good to meet a group from the townland of Darragh, County Clare, which is on the N68 road from Ennis to Kilrush. There have been four fatalities there over the years and just last Sunday, there was a major accident there again. We presented to the Minister of State a map and aerial shot of the area. There are a few businesses and a shop. There are many entrances to houses and farms. It is quite convoluted and dangerous. It is important to say that the local councillors have been very responsive. At council meetings, they have repeatedly brought forward motions to reduce the speed limit, but because it is a national route, that needs the consent of TII, which seems to be the barrier to this happening. There is a bit of a chicken and an egg going on. TII's view is that the safety scheme should be put in and then the speed limit should be lowered. However, the Minister of State and I served on local authorities in years gone by. It can take a long time to get something designed, funded and built. We should reduce the speed limit, allow the funding application to be made and then deal with that. It is going nowhere and, on this occasion, we may require the Minister of State's intervention to insist that the speed limit be reduced, pending the overall safety works required there.

Yes. I met the group with Deputy Crowe. The requests it made were straightforward and commonsensical. We will continue. I will liaise with TII on that.

Could I specifically ask - the Minister of State's officials are here today as well - for the Minister of State's intervention, as it seems to be a bit of dead duck with TII? It would be timely and help the cause. Councillors have a reserved power to push through speed limit reductions, but they are being resisted by TII, so it needs the Minister of State's intervention at this stage.

Okay. As I said, we will talk to TII and talk to the Deputy again after that about what can be done.

I thank the Minister of State.

There is another major road in County Clare. It is the N67, the main arterial road through north Clare, which brings people to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. It is always majorly congested because people go to see those beautiful sites. Next year, the Irish Open will be in Doonbeg and the Walker Cup will be in Lahinch Golf Club. I read in the news with interest a few weeks ago that the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, announced a range of packages for Adare and adjacent communities due to the Ryder Cup. There does not seem to be any such accommodation for the north Clare communities, yet they are under huge pressure and we are expecting the whole world to come to watch golf in north Clare and go through roads that are dangerous and potholed. Will the Department of Transport be doing anything specifically for that road network in north Clare?

In that instance, the local authority should put together what it wants and what is necessary and submit it to the Department of Transport to be looked at. I do not know whether any request for funding has come in from the county council.

I believe one has, but I can follow up on my end. I said north Clare, but it is north and west. Two events are happening and something is needed to make the roads safer and easier to travel on.

I cycled here again this morning. I came up on the early train. I often cycle down the quays to get to Leinster House. There is fantastic cycling infrastructure in Dublin, which there may not be to the same extent elsewhere in the country, but it is there. The problem I see in Dublin - and it is also in other towns and cities - is that food delivery services - I will not name the companies - breeze past on those cycle lanes on electric bicycles that can do 40 km and 50 km per hour. Those bicycles are interfacing with cyclists on the traditional pedal or push-bike. They breeze past, often clipping people's elbows as they try to cycle safely. It is a total hazard. Those electric bikes are going faster than most cars and buses on the main thoroughfare and it is time that the Minister of State engaged with these companies. All of these people operate as contractors. The companies have them all on their books. I ask the Minister of State to ask An Garda Síochána or agents of the Department of Transport to find out who all of these contractors are and what types of bike they are using, because they are all illegal. I am not saying we should put them off the road overnight, but they should be fitted with restrictors. It is a simple exercise to ask the companies the names of the people who are delivering for them and get An Garda Síochána to call to their houses, because most of them are breaking the law with the electric bikes they are cycling on cycleways.

I think everyone has experienced this.

If something is being done illegally, it is important that there be enforcement to make sure it is done right. I will be taking that up again with the Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan. There is an increase in this type of activity. It is great to see fewer deliveries by car and that they are being done by vehicles that are not taking up as much road space. There is always competition between the motorist, the cyclist and the pedestrian. Now we have e-scooters and e-bikes in there as well. It is a question of how we accommodate them and how they respect one another. It goes back to the first thing I said when I came in here. The most important thing is that everybody take personal responsibility when on the road to make sure they are not clipping somebody else, not pushing them out of the lane or not getting aggravated because somebody in front is driving slower. The companies have a role to play in that as well.

What I am referring to is very niche; it is companies and their cyclists using these huge battery packs and exceeding the speed of cars. I hope the Minister of State will go directly after those individuals.

I watched a Netflix documentary over the weekend called “The Crash”, which is trending at the moment. I will not go into the details of it but it relates to a prominent crash that happened in America a few years ago and was the subject of a number of trials. What interested me was that the car in the documentary had what is colloquially called a black box. It is called an event data recorder. New cars in the European Union have been fitted with these for the past two years but we have no legislative basis in Ireland for any of that. It is at the whim of a judge if evidence collected on these black boxes is admissible in court or not. By way of illustration, the black box in that documentary was able to identify what speed the car was travelling at second by second and when brakes were applied. It was highly relevant to detecting what happened in the crash. Does the Minister of State have plans to implement such legislation and bring technology into mainstream road traffic legislation?

Anything that helps road safety will be considered. My officials will check that out to see what kind of legislative procedures we need in order to use technology that is already available. We should be looking at all technologies that are coming on stream now as an aide to enforcement and making the roads safer.

The Minister of State and his team are very welcome. I thank him for all his engagement with me over the past couple of years.

I am confused over the Government's plans for reform around road safety. The target in Vision Zero is no more than 72 deaths on our roads per year. There were over 188 last year and this year there have been 80. We have already surpassed the target, and there have been six more this year than by this time last year. That means that we are not delivering on that target.

The Minister of State is pulling back from the commitments by a former Minister to split the RSA into two independent agencies. The Indecon report proposed that the RSA would retain existing operational customer-focused services and that the Department of Transport would assume national responsibility for awareness campaigns and education. That is because the report identified a clash of focus there and insufficient resources. What are the Minister of State's plans to address that?

Obviously, the RSA was not functioning properly. Along with the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, and the Government, I made the decision to reform the RSA from within and to give it the additional resources it needed. As the Deputy said, there are the two parts to it. There is the operational part, some aspects of which have already been improved. In the next two weeks we will publish a document outlining how it will be reformed and a timeframe within which it will be reformed. It will be resourced to make sure we have a good, crisp communications structure within it.

There is a fantastic educational resource within the RSA that is doing good work in all the schools. On Monday, I visited a school in Granard where the fifth class students were out for the opening of a cycle way. They were telling me what they learned about how to use a bicycle out on the road. I asked them what they remembered about it and they were very clear in what they remembered and what they had to do. The first thing they said they were taught was how to stop the bike, which is the most important thing. It was not how to pedal the bike, but how to stop it. I believe we have the basis within the RSA to have very good communications, education and delivery of messages for the public.

Does it need to go beyond education and communication? The overall strategy is not working. These figures mean we are in crisis when it comes to road deaths. Will what the Minister of State is bringing forward show us concrete reforms around leadership, strategy, co-ordination, resources and funding? I know the Minister of State is saying that everybody has responsibility, but ultimately if everybody has responsibility, who is accountable?

Within the RSA, it is true to say there are areas of weakness. The Deputy spoke about the leadership, accountability and all that type of thing. That is what we are addressing. The board was depleted. We have appointed four new directors to the board to help Ms Anne Graham, the chair, to manage and run the organisation. The board was allowed to deplete because it was believed it was going to be broken up anyway. I feel strongly that we can reform the RSA from within. We will have a document in two weeks that will set out what reforms will be carried out and a timeline within which they will be implemented.

The Deputy spoke about education. What else is needed? I think it is education, and reminding people that they have responsibility is part of the education.

Is the Minister of State proposing to resource the status quo, but that structurally it will not change?

There will be some structural changes. Some divisions will be changed and all of that. When it comes out, we will tell the Deputy that. The RSA is not responsible for legislation or the enforcement of legislation.

Who is ultimately responsible?

I, as Minister of State with responsibility for road safety, have overall responsibility. However, there are many key elements within it. For instance, no one can blame the RSA if we are not carrying out enforcement on the road. What I have heard this morning is that there are a lot of issues involved with road safety apart from the RSA.

What will the Minister of State do to change that? I just want to focus on the role of the road safety leadership group, which brings together all the stakeholders. I will give some examples of the lack of integration on occasions. The Department of Transport brought in good legislation on fixed-charge notices for illegal licence plates, but it lay dormant for two years. When Ms Susan Gray of PARC raised it with me, we worked on it, we got it through and it was implemented on the mobility apps. In a five-month period, over 5,000 fixed-charge notices were issued. That is a marker for other road compliance issues. It sounds small but it is really important.

There is a lack of integration between the Department of justice and the Department of Transport. We see it with the driver numbers and the collection in courts. The courts have been identifying this as an issue for 15 years. Approximately 1,500 penalty points that have been assigned are not recorded on the National Vehicle Driver File per year.

I thank the Minister of State for his engagement on this issue. Where is the urgency and joined-up thinking? It impacts other areas. For example, the camera strategy explicitly states that it is concerned about downstream impacts and that too many offences would overwhelm the Courts Service. If we addressed this issue and had a more efficient process for the issuing of court penalty points, we would perhaps not then stall the implementation and potential of the camera strategy, which is currently restricted to red lights, which is great, and bus lane infringement. We need it to move on to mobile phone issues and seatbelts. There are also issues with e-scooters. Where is the integration and joined-up thinking? How do we improve that? A new style of leadership is needed. There are more people and fewer gardaí on the roads and it is clear as day that driver behaviour is worsening.

I agree with the Deputy wholeheartedly. Driver behaviour is key. We have 750,000 more people in this country since 2014. Paradoxically, we have improved our ranking for road safety in Europe per capita. That is a contradiction because I am not happy to be fifth in Europe. I want to see the numbers reduced. I agree with the Deputy that there is a body of work to be done.

The statistics are cold comfort to the 80 families affected by road fatalities this year.

The Deputy mentioned the Courts Service and enforcement. The remit of the RSA does not include being responsible for that.

Who has responsibility?

I thank the Minister of State for coming before the committee. I want to start with e-scooters and scramblers. There are regulations on high-vis vests and helmets. I am still waiting for an update on what we are going to do with regard to registration, tax and insurance requirements for such vehicles. I heard what the Minister of State said about the sale piece, but that seems to involve heavy enforcement. If we work that through, we will send gardaí and Revenue to every shop in the country that sells e-scooters to check specifications. Even at that, there is no stopping someone who has bought such a vehicle from modifying the speed limit on it.

Denmark, Italy and Singapore have registration and insurance requirements for e-scooters. We know they are traceable, which reduces their use in criminality and makes it easier for police to enforce the law around the inappropriate use of an e-scooter by age. Is the Minister of State planning to go further than legislation on high-vis vests for e-scooters and examine registration and insurance requirements to address some user behaviour? The Minister of State is correct in that e-scooters are useful and I fully support their safe use on our roads in an appropriate way. However, they are not being used safely. Unless we stop every one that is being sold dangerously in every shop in the country, we need to examine a registration and insurance requirement.

I do not know if the Deputy was here when I said that yesterday, the Ministers, Deputies O'Brien and O'Callaghan, and I met our officials regarding a suite of problems with e-scooters and scramblers. The Tánaiste was also in the room. What the Deputy has said is exactly what we are working on.

There are plans for registration and insurance requirements being brought forward.

Plans are being worked on at the moment. The Deputy also hit a very important point, namely, that we can introduce as many rules and regulations as we like and over-regulate the whole thing but that cannot be enforced. We have to make sure that whatever we do is effective in terms of the sale, licensing and registration of these machines. We also need to address who is responsible for them in terms of insurance, whether they should be taxed and so on. We have to look at all of that and that is what we are doing at the moment.

That is good. I take a different tack with regard to cameras. I understand the issue with using more cameras across the motorway and road network, in particular in areas like the Newcastle Road in Lucan, Kennelsfort Road in Palmerstown or Aylmer Road in Newcastle where HGV bans are in place which are flouted regularly. The feedback I have received from local Garda leadership is that it is not a good use of time for gardaí to stand in a location once a month to check for HGVs.

London has implemented an effective camera system to police HGV bans. I am not proposing that we extend HGV bans, rather I am speaking about enforcing the ones which are in place. Every time I have raised this issue with officials or An Garda Síochána, I am told there is a legislative barrier in that the way the legislation is framed means gardaí have to process camera footage to then dispatch a fine, fixed penalty notice or whatever else. Would the Minister of State be willing to consider a legislative solution to allow local authorities to do that in the same way that a litter warden issues fines to those who litter? Local authorities could be in charge of managing cameras on a local road network, given that they are the bodies that decide to put a HGV ban in place on their roads. Would the Minister of State give legislative authority to local authorities to issue fixed charge penalty notices to vehicles that are in zones they should not be in?

On what the Deputy has suggested, the camera strategy group is examining all options. I said earlier that we should use the technologies available to the best advantage if there is a scarcity of gardaí out on the roads policing. We have technology and we have to get over the legislative stuff about data protection and all of that so that we can use it and make things easier.

On the national driver vehicle Bill, at the moment the person in a speed van has to appear in court and make a statement when somebody is brought to court for a speeding offence. Under the new legislation, a certificate from the person will be sufficient. That will leave people doing the job they are supposed to be doing rather than having to be in court.

That makes sense. Will the Minister of State be open to local authorities being given a role for overseeing the bans they put in place with their by-laws?

I am not ruling any option out. We are going through everything to make sure we try to capture the best way of doing things.

That is a qualified "Yes".

I did not say that either, no.

I would very much encourage the Minister of State to do so. It makes sense. We know local authorities can do that efficiently with regard to things like litter management and so on. Ultimately, local authorities decide the areas designated for HGV bans. Such a system has worked effectively in London and has reduced fatalities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians.

I want to move on to the enforcement piece. How regularly does the Minister of State receive a report from An Garda Síochána about the number of checkpoints completed and located and the number of offences detected at those checkpoints?

Every three months.

Is there any appetite for more frequent reporting?

We can check with the Garda. I do not know. Getting a report every month is fine. Should we use resources to do that when gardaí should be engaged in enforcement?

It should be automated. There could be a roster to do it. It is not an issue.

When there are incidents, paperwork has to be done. I would not like to overburden somebody with reporting if it is going to-----

My understanding is that when a checkpoint is located and completed and an offence is detected, that is automatically located and recorded on the PULSE system. The information can be downloaded.

We get feedback on, for example, the bank holiday weekends straight away. The public knows what happens in a given weekend. A fair bit of information comes from the Garda fairly rapidly. The most important thing is what we do with that information when we receive it.

We look and see if the numbers are going up.

We can see the numbers are going up. The number of uninsured drivers is going up and there are more speeding offences.

We are happy that more offences are being detected at checkpoints now than there were previously. Do we have that information on a rolling weekly basis?

Yes. More people means that more incidents are being recorded. There are more cars in the country. I keep going back to my statement that I would prefer there to be prevention rather than catching people.

When it comes to data like this, with all due respect it is very useful to speak about deaths per capita but actually when it comes to human life, we should speak about the raw numbers rather than the proportions. We are singing from the same hymn sheet. It is good to hear that more incidents are being recorded, but I do not think a quarterly cadence of data collection is sufficient. When I was on the joint policing committee in south Dublin, we received and sought information on a monthly basis. It is not a resource-intensive exercise. Gardaí have this information recorded on the PULSE system. For public confidence, just as when the Government set out that 30 minutes of road policing needed to happen by every garda in the country, we should be able to show on a weekly basis that a certain number of checkpoints is happening around the country and bad behaviour is being detected.

That is the point I am making; I am not necessarily negating the Minister of State's point.

To clarify, when I mentioned our place in Europe in terms of road safety, I said it does not matter to me.

I know that.

I am not interested in that. I am interested in reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries on our roads.

I thank the Minister of State for that. We are into our second round.

Coming back to the national camera safety strategy, when would the Minister of State expect to see a large-scale roll-out of red light traffic cameras in the country?

I will be meeting with the camera strategy group, which met yesterday. I will be going back to get a report from the group to see what plans we have, and I will come back to the Deputy on that.

Does the Minister of State have any sense of a timeline?

I do not, because the group met yesterday and I want to get its feedback on what its plans are.

Was that the group's first meeting?

Yes, it was.

I have been asking the Minister of State a lot about the national camera safety strategy. I would like to have seen it published earlier, but it is published now. My big concern is there is no real set of timelines in there on red light cameras or anything. It seems there has been a lot of work done to publish a document that is very vague on its implementation. The Minister of State is now outsourcing that implementation to the oversight group which will then come back to him. It is very hard to see how we are progressing something reasonably basic like getting cameras put at traffic lights, where we know pedestrians, cyclists and motorists are put at risk where people are regularly breaking lights. There does not seem to be any pressure or rush in delivering this.

Strategy is one thing, but the implementation plan is what the Deputy is talking about and it is something I also want to see.

Is there an implementation plan coming?

I will be talking to the strategy committee to see when I will get an implementation plan, because that is what I work on. I am not a strategist.

Is the Minister of State telling the group it has to have an implementation plan?

Absolutely. There is no point in having a strategy without having an implementation plan.

Is that part of the group's terms of reference?

Yes.

It is. Will the Minister of State come back to us and tell us when that implementation plan will be written?

It is not so much when; I want to see it, and so does this committee.

Moving on, we had the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, MBRS, in with us which reminded the committee of that key point which is that 30% of all deaths on the roads are linked to alcohol. The bureau spoke about the potential for the use of alcohol ignition interlocks and new technology where your breath would disbar your car from moving. These could be transformative in keeping people who are under the influence of alcohol off our roads. Is the Minister of State supportive of their use, does he think they should be mandatory in this country and will he look to introduce legislation to advance their use?

I met with Professor Desmond O'Neill yesterday on this. I am a fan of them and I think they are a great enabler for us to make our roads safer. We have to look at it in several ways. How we can introduce them in a way that will help people not drive when they have taken drink? I have seen them, I have sampled them and they are very good. I am a fan of them and I hope we will be able to introduce them.

There are two ways we can do this, or there are two things I would like to see happen, which is company fleets taking them on voluntarily to lead by example, and State transport having them as an example for everybody else. However, we might also have them as part of our system for people who offend, so that this could be part of the rehabilitation and consequence of their actions. Being honest, there is huge potential for them.

We recently had Sheila Gilheany and Alcohol Action Ireland, AAI, in before the committee. One of the major statistics the organisation had was the cuts to the Garda road traffic numbers and the amount of stops that had taken place in 2007 compared with 2024. It has reduced by 75%, or close to 20,000 and now 5,000. It maintained this has had consequences for the number of people stopped for drink-driving, the detection levels and visibility. While I appreciate there is a lot of expenditure on awareness and educational programmes, would the Minister of State agree you cannot beat Garda visibility, particularly on more rural roads late at night when many of these road collisions occur?

Absolutely. There is no point in having all the laws in the world if you do not have the enforcement and consequences for breaking the law.

Has the Minister of State had any meetings with the Garda to try to restore the level of stops that were taking place back in 2007?

Yes, both the Minister, Deputy O'Brien and I have had meetings with the Minister for justice, Deputy O'Callaghan, as well as the Garda, including the assistant Garda Commissioner on this. I meet the assistant Garda Commissioner every bank holiday weekend when we do the road safety and road awareness programmes for them.

Is there any commitment from the Garda to restore not only the numbers in road traffic but also the amount of stops late at night, which have a direct effect? AAI compared statistics from Australia, where they have a much higher level of visibility and expected stops per person, with here and, unfortunately, according to AAI's numbers, it has dropped here by 75% which is massive.

This goes back to the whole area of our entire police force being reduced in numbers. I am not defending this, but it has put pressure on gardaí to do all the work expected of them. My focus is to bring the numbers up. We will continue to work with the Garda to try to increase numbers as quickly as possible. I would also say, and we talked about this earlier, that more of the technologies available now should be used to help us do detections.

Does the Minister of State have any commitment from the Garda to increase numbers?

Yes, it has told us it wants to increase them but we are not getting them quickly enough. However, we just have to keep working to get them increased. I cannot defend it, but I will say that, coupled with the numbers increasing, we also need to increase the use of technologies to assist the Garda in its work.

I said earlier that even with the fixed van on the road doing the speed checks, the guy in that van has to appear in court to confirm he was there and that the certificate is right for the person who was caught speeding. When the new legislation is in place, a written certificate will suffice so that person can be out in the van doing their job rather than being in the court for a day.

They do not detect drink-drivers though.

No, but what I am saying is that is part of the problem. We have a cumbersome system when someone is in court, and it is important we be smarter in the way we deal with that.

I also want to ask about the reinstatement of expired Irish driver licences. The Government can amend not primary but secondary legislation so that a driver licence can be renewed with the classes and categories previously approved in Ireland if the person held a licence elsewhere. They have a similar scheme in the Netherlands, so it is easier to reinstate an expired licence. It does not need legislation, apparently. It is not related to the exchange or recognition and all that. It is secondary legislation which can be used, more or less at the stroke of a pen, to reintroduce that and to have expired licences - this relates to somebody who already had a licence in Ireland - reinstated when the person has a current licence from another state. Will the Minister of State give a commitment to do that? There are many people who have been abroad, sometimes through no fault of their own. After the economic crash, they had to leave and their Irish driver licence expired, but they continue to drive in another state. They pass the test here and are recognised by another state, for example, the Netherlands.

The Netherlands will reinstate the Irish licences.

The Deputy does know that a person whose licence has expired can reinstate it within ten years of it expiring?

Yes, but some people may have been away longer than that.

Regarding the proposals that have come from the group, we are looking at all that to see what we can do. I am not going to give a commitment here about what I will do about that because the important thing here is making sure that whatever we do does not impinge on the integrity of the licensing system and that we do not compromise road safety in Ireland.

Of course. The Minister of State is not saying “No”.

I am saying we are looking at it.

Right. It is something the Minister of State will consider carefully.

All my decisions are considered carefully.

That is probably as much as I am going to get out of the Minister of State. I have 33 seconds left but I will park it there.

I thank the Deputy. I wish to briefly mention the racing of horse-drawn vehicles on Irish roads and in particular the racing of sulkies. I acknowledge the engagement I have had with Mr. Walsh in the Department. It is extraordinary that as it stands under existing road traffic legislation, under certain conditions, with the permission of An Garda Síochána and the local authority, you can race horse-drawn vehicles on Irish roads. Prosecutions are quite complicated. Only the organiser of the event can be prosecuted and sometimes it is very difficult to identify who the organiser is. We have talked a lot about the upcoming road traffic Bill. Will the heads of that be before the Cabinet before the summer recess? There is an urgent need to amend the relevant section, section 74, of the 1993 Act. I would like a commitment today that we will look at section 74 in the context of the next road traffic Bill. I think we all agree that, while it is an issue that also intersects with the Departments of justice and agriculture, we need to amend section 74 of the 1993 Act urgently. Under no circumstances should the racing of horse-drawn vehicles and sulkies be allowed on Irish roads. Will the Minister of State comment on that?

The Minister for agriculture has requested a meeting with ourselves and the Department of justice, which we have positively replied to, to see how we can work together to make sure that whatever legislation is required and whatever tightening up is needed is done. As the Cathaoirleach says, it is very hard to identify the organiser. There are a number of issues. There is animal welfare and road safety. It is important we get it right. There is also an issue with horse-drawn carriages in the likes of Dublin and other places.

There is legislation going back before the foundation of the State which deals with the Dublin metropolis.

Yes.

I have written to all Ministers on the establishment of that working group. I am glad to hear because it does intersect with justice, transport and agriculture.

I come back to driver behaviour and the point we are all making about the importance of enforcement in shaping driver behaviour. We all agree we need to strengthen our roads policing unit, but how do we get there? In terms of allocating graduates, we have had two intakes. Is it completely at the discretion of the Garda Commissioner or are we as a Government, the leadership group, talking to the Commissioner and telling him we need to strengthen our roads policing? We are talking about it but how is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? What is the ambition for the numbers we intend to add to our roads policing, which currently stands at only 641, during the lifetime of this Government?

We are in constant discussions with the Garda and the Department of justice on the enforcement and the level of enforcement that is happening. Everybody wants to see more of it. However, we have to be careful here because the Garda has a role to play and we cannot interfere with how it plays that role. I will give one example of a reaction to the scramblers. The Garda ha confiscated over 700 scramblers. I think 770 scramblers have been confiscated in the last month or so. The force can react to something like that, but what I want to see is a more consistent number of people and that we will see more visibility right throughout the year. Eighty per cent of our local roads also need more visibility.

I can only press upon the Minister of State that we need to set targets for the Commissioner to strengthen this, whether that might be 1,000 members within our roads policing, during the lifetime of this Government, such is the level of crisis and carnage on Irish roads. The Minister of State has acknowledged it himself in terms of driver behaviour. Unfortunately, many drivers on Irish roads do not think they will be caught. That is reflected.

We have targets which were set but they have not been met, so we have to keep working on it.

Can I have an update on learner drivers and the renewing of permits? Will the Minister of State confirm we are on track to bring in the regulations on 1 November so that a learner driver cannot be on the road for more than four years with their learner permits without taking a test?

It is on track, it is coming in and we will have it in on 1 November. There is no question on that.

It will impact people who have had their second learner permit in that they will not be able to get their third until they take a test.

That is it, yes. Also, going back to driver testing, we see an increase in driver testing. The trends are that people in those categories are now doing their test. The biggest reason for all this was that people were applying for an appointment to do a test just to renew their licence and not actually showing up for the test. We could have had in excess of 8,000 no-shows in any one year, which was a huge waste of resources while people were crying out to get their tests done. I hope it will be twofold. It will get people to get their licence and it will make sure there is a more efficient testing service in that all people, bar an accident or sickness, will show up.

We do need to get up to the 200 testers mark, as committed. I believe the test times have come up again to 12 weeks.

The latest figures, in June, are 194 testers. There are nine more in training. We will have four more of them in July and the other five are coming after that.

I thank the Minister of State and the RSA for engagement on Mulhuddart and the test centre and the fact we need a test centre that reflects the capacity and demand required in Dublin West.

I agree there are some pinch points in the testing times. What we have is the flexibility with testers to move to the areas they are needed. We have put in a temporary test centre in Raheny because there was a problem there with roadworks so people could not get in and out and so on. We reacted to that and in the next couple of weeks we will have a temporary overflow one done to try to bring the numbers there because I want to get every centre down to ten.