Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport for an update on his Department’s work on road safety, including road maintenance, to tackle the continuing rise in road fatalities. [28968/24]

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to ask for an update on the Department's budget for road safety, in particular road maintenance, to deal with the issue of fatalities and people getting hurt on our roads in accidents over the past while. There has been a lull in the numbers in recent weeks, in that we thankfully have not had as many fatalities, but a large number of people have just lost their lives on our roads over the past 36 hours. For me and the many road safety campaigners, this brings into sharp focus the Government's failure to put adequate measures in place to protect road users.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I look forward to working with the Deputy in this brief. His is Sinn Féin's spokesperson on transport and I know from the justice committee, where we worked together well, that he will be diligent in that regard. I look forward to continuing that relationship now that we are both in new roles.

I extend my sympathies to the families of those who sadly lost their lives over last weekend and the past night or two. I am sure everyone in the House will agree that one fatality is one too many. However, this is a complex area with many factors. The four main causes of road deaths are speeding, driver distraction, not wearing a seatbelt and intoxicated driving. These are behaviours that have been systematically addressed by the Road Traffic Act 2024, which was introduced by my predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and signed into law in April, followed in some cases where appropriate by regulations in May. Among other measures across vehicle types and scenarios, the Act legislates for safer default speed limits, which will first be rolled out on local roads this November, harsher penalties for those caught committing multiple driving offences, with multiple penalty points becoming applicable rather than just one set of points as was previously the case, and mandatory drug testing at the scene of a collision. The mandatory drug testing provisions were commenced on 31 May in time for the June bank holiday and the penalty point provisions are being worked towards commencement over the summer. The new speed limits will kick in on a staggered basis, with the focus being on local roads towards the end of this year.

The new legislation complements increased enforcement activity. The House will be aware that uniformed gardaí will now implement 30-minute shifts on road policing duties in the course of their normal shifts. This rostering was announced by the Commissioner and will have an impact.

The Deputy referred to patterns. I appreciate that one is one too many, but if I may, I will cite the statistics. We moved from a monthly average of 20 deaths in January, February and March to 11 in the second quarter of the year. This coincided with the introduction of the new road traffic legislation and the regulations flowing from that. The issue is going in the right way despite the recent tragedies.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State to his new role and look forward to working with him. He and I get on well on a personal level, but where this matter is concerned, there are issues with policy and the fact that, in my view and that of many others, the Government’s commitment to provide the safety measures we need on our roads has not been followed through on adequately.

The Minister of State is correct to point out that speeding, intoxication and drivers getting distracted by, for example, using mobile phones are issues that continually arise in road traffic collisions and fatalities. We do not have the level of enforcement we need. The primary element of that enforcement is gardaí monitoring our roads and protecting the people on them. This is not about having speed cameras, which are a one-trick pony, but about having gardaí out monitoring the roads. We have not had enough of that for the past two decades or so. In the past decade, roads policing numbers have been cut and cut again. That serious matter is the core of this issue.

We have major problems with what used to be called accident black spots on many of our local and rural roads. There are many such areas in my constituency. All local authorities are looking for funding to work on them, but they cannot get the funding from the Government that they need to provide an adequate level of road maintenance and to ensure that safety measures are put in place at such locations.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I hear what the Deputy is saying. He stated that local authorities could not get funding from the Government. I want to hear about that if it is the case. I am surprised to hear it, as there has been a significant allocation. Some €658 million was allocated in the past year, 90% of which was directed towards maintenance and renewal work. That allocation was a €32 million increase compared with the previous year. On 31 May, an additional €30 million was allocated to local authorities, which I had confirmed yesterday, to tackle damage caused by rainfall over the winter and spring periods.

It is sometimes suggested that spending money on maintaining local roads is at odds with climate policy, but the opposite is the case. The damage done to local roads is a direct result of climate change. They are deteriorating so rapidly because we now have so many winter storms and so many periods of freezing and thawing. Maintenance of local roads damaged by climate change is consistent with policy.

The Deputy discussed enforcement, which is a matter for the Commissioner. I note the Deputy’s comments. The Commissioner has instructed all uniformed personnel to put in a 30-minute roads policing shift at minimum. We are seeing higher levels of enforcement already. I am certainly noticing it as I go about my business, and I am sure others are, too.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Roads policing of 30 minutes is a red herring. I have spoken to many gardaí and they do that anyway. It is not something they needed to be instructed to do and it does not achieve anything additional. It is simply about the Commissioner and Department being able to tick a box.

When I looked at the 2024 budget when it was announced last year, I saw a cut of €150 million from the road safety and maintenance fund. That is still in effect. I received a letter a couple of weeks ago from the organisation that provides asphalt and tar for roads. It tries to plan in advance for its contracts. It wrote to the local authorities, which told it that they could not get funding from the Government for many of their planned programmes. The Minister of State claims that extra money has been put in place, but the reality on the ground is that communities are not seeing that money being spent because local authorities say they do not have it. I will provide an example. Carns National School in County Sligo is a little school on the road between Sligo town and Bundoran. It exits onto a national road, which presents considerable dangers. The local authority tells me that, if it wants to do anything at the crossroads, it first needs sanction from Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. It can do nothing without having all kinds of engineers’ reports. Putting together all of the reports and data required of the local authority will cost it more than the actual job. This is the main problem in many situations. We are overburdened with red tape and no work is being done on the ground.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I listened with interest to and take on board the Deputy's comments. I am not sure it is entirely fair to suggest that local authorities are saying they cannot get works done. A staggered approach is taken and it is not just a case of being given the money and tar to fix a road. Rather, what is the collision data, what are the risks and what is the opinion of the local engineer, who is closest to the ground? Are there planning reasons for the issue? Are there other junctions? These works should entail a degree of due diligence. Although it is taxpayers’ money, I do not just mean financial due diligence. These projects also have to be analysed from the perspective of road safety. Often, the money for them is released on a staggered basis to deal with the costing, the scoping exercise, the plan and then the implementation.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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All the money is being spent on scoping exercises.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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That is exactly what we would want to see.

The Deputy mentioned interagency co-operation. A strong example of that was the recent implementation of an initiative by my predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, who signed a ministerial order on 21 June just before leaving this role to allow the sharing of collision data between agencies. Now, the Garda and the Road Safety Authority, RSA, can share data with each other. That was always the case. It was complicated by GDPR, but that issue has now been corrected. This was a commonsensical measure that my Department took to cut through red tape.