Results 441-460 of 1,038,917 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Patrick Nulty OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Catherine Murphy) in 'Committee meetings'

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Is Mr. Rowland telling me that the Road Safety Authority does not have any road safety engineers on staff?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: No, it is not. It goes far beyond that. In fact, the Road Safety Authority Act 2006 refers to, “the promotion of public awareness of road safety and of measures, including the advancement of education, relating to the promotion of the safe use of roads, including co-operation with local authorities and other persons in this regard”. Its remit should include that. I am...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What is the cost-benefit analysis the RSA runs on that?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I understand.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Value for money and a cost-benefit analysis are two different things. I understand that hi-vis materials are relatively cheap. Some €750,000 is not a great deal of money. Hi-vis is relatively cheap. We can go down the road and buy it in any shop. We can pick up a hi-vis vest. I am asking about the cost-benefit analysis. A lot of work goes work into putting hi-vis vests very...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: During the night or during low-light conditions.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: How many four-year-olds are out walking at night-time?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I think that is victim-blaming, to be quite honest, because of where responsibility is placed. I believe the going to school booklet is still live on the RSA website.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It begins with dodgy research. It states that research shows that children aged under 12 should not cross roads on their own. In fact, the research points to those under ten years old. It has conflated-----

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have the FOI that-----

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have the FOI on the research it was based on and it was ten-year-olds.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The second point it states is that children should wear high-visibility clothing when out walking. That firmly and squarely places the blame on parents and young children. We should be engineering our roads so it is safe for our children to walk to school.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Taking into account that it is quite cheap to do, what cost-benefit analysis is done on the hi-vis expenditure? It has an impact on where blame is apportioned for road collisions. Is there an underpinning cost-benefit analysis?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I want to focus on disqualified drivers. Something like 1,800 learners were disqualified in 2023 and only 3% of them surrendered their permit to the Road Safety Authority. From a parliamentary question reply, I discovered that only one driver out of the 10,000 who were disqualified in court in 2022 and 2023 was then convicted of not surrendering their licence. In the UK, for example, a...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: We then come back to the level of enforcement and the data that the Road Safety Authority collects, for example, if somebody is detected as having been driving while disqualified. Data is going to be important. In the case of fatal accidents where people were driving unaccompanied with a learner permit in the last five years, does the Road Safety Authority separate out that information so...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Thank you for that information. Information is going to be very important, in particular, how the Road Safety Authority is going to apply that information to reduce the number of fatalities. To move to a different subject, what was the totality of fines for non-adherence to the NCT timelines applied to the company that was outsourced to do that job in the last couple of years?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: “Service credits” sounds very positive.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Is that how the contract is structured?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I will move to another topic. In terms of defining the safety of roads, is it solely based on the absence of accidents and fatalities or does the Road Safety Authority look at it from the point of view that they may be used by, for example, children and vulnerable road users? What is the metric used? How does the Road Safety Authority determine that?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: Road Safety Authority (27 Jun 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I do know a little bit about this. I know about road design, the speed for each road and all the rest of it, and I know we have a lot of very old, small rural roads. I would ask the Road Safety Authority to add something on the speed limits. A few years ago, the national lower speed limit was set at 80 km/h to achieve consistency and the local authorities rushed out and bought a load of 80...