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Opening Statement to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport - 04.02.26 - Road Safety


Thank you, Chairperson and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak today on the topic of road safety. My name is Jason Cullen, chairperson of Dublin Commuter Coalition, and I’m joined today by John Quigley, a member of our committee.


Who we are and what we do


Dublin Commuter Coalition is a voluntary advocacy group established in 2018 to act as a unifying voice for sustainable transport users in the Greater Dublin Area. Despite our name, we don’t just advocate for “commuters”, but for everyone in the GDA who walks, cycles or uses public transport.


Our vision is for Dublin to have a well-connected transport network that is safe, accessible, reliable, & sustainable, and we believe our preferred policies benefit all transport users, including drivers.


Vision Zero and the recent trends in Road Safety


The first major issue we’d like to address is the failing of Vision Zero; the Government's Road Safety strategy, which aims to half serious injuries and road deaths by 2030. Not only have the responsible agencies failed to meet their first milestone; 122 road deaths in 2024, deaths have actually increased every single year bar one since the strategy was adopted. Perhaps most worryingly, vulnerable road user deaths have increased significantly in the last twelve months despite only a marginal increase in the overall number of people who lost their lives on the roads.


This in itself is an unforgivable failure, made only worse when you consider the funding commitment for Phase 1 of Vision Zero was €3.8 billion. Serious questions need to be raised about what that massive amount of public money has actually accomplished outside of more seriously injured and dead people on Irish Roads.


Unsurprisingly, there’s no ‘hard’ targets in Phase 2, but collectively we’re still aiming to reduce road deaths by now 118 annually in just three and half years. Even at this point, a number of the actions within Phase 2 have already been rolled back on by this Government, so we have just about as much confidence in it succeeding as the preceding Phase.


The shortcomings of the Road Safety Authority


The second major issue we’d like to highlight is the continuous shortcomings of the Road Safety Authority. Serious injuries on Irish roads doubled within the last decade and road deaths have hit a modern record high. It’s also widely reported that they struggle to carry out the duties of car testing and driver licensing in a timely manner as well.


The IndeCon report generated during the lifetime of the last Government laid out quite clearly all of the reasons that reform of the RSA is required:


● It’s an agency that generates its funding from increasing the amount of cars on our road, as such has a conflict in undertaking their road safety campaigns.

● Its unsustainable funding already has an annual deficit of €20m, that is expected to rise to €45m in 2033.

● The RSA does not have any Engineering or Road Design employees and so lacks the expertise to advise and train those entities or elected reps empowered to make our roads safer

● Almost a Decade on, the GDPR issue in sharing data with Local Authorities persists and so none of the little information the RSA does have could have been acted on by Local Authorities since 2016

● Only a small handful of the RSA’s staff are actually tasked with road safety promotion, education and research


Two years ago: thirty four campaign groups came together to declare no-confidence in the Road Safety Authority. Both a plan and iron-clad commitment to reform the RSA was then passed… but have since been rescinded by the current Minister for Road Safety citing “cost” as the reason… for, may I remind you; an entity that’s already €20m in the hole each year, and getting worse.


Love 30 & Minister Sean Canney’s “regrettable” position


Finally; as you may know, Love 30 is a National Campaign for safe road speeds in residential and urban areas. Legislation enabling the Minister of the day to set ‘default’ speed limits was passed by the previous Daíl and was used to reduce 100kph roads last year.


The reason this campaign is such an important one for road safety is due to the outcomes of road traffic collisions. A person struck by a vehicle at 30kph has a nine in ten chance of survival, as opposed to one in ten if hit at 60kph


This single change would have a massive impact on reducing road deaths, and is in the Minister’s remit to do so at the stroke of a pen… but he has decided that each Council is to conduct their own road review by mid 2027 with instruction to reduce urban speeds.


Recently we gave a presentation about road safety here in the AV room of Leinster House which some of you attended, along with one of Minister Canney’s representatives. When I pushed for the position of the Minister regarding the likelihood that this u-turn would lead to increased numbers of cyclist deaths, shockingly, the response we got back was that it “would be regrettable”.


Conclusion


What is truly regrettable is that we all have to sit in this room in the wake of 190 deaths on our roads last year and discuss the reasons why…


The reasons are very simple


The agencies responsible for road safety are focused on the wrong things


The bodies overseeing them can’t or in some cases don’t hold them to account


And the Minister for Road Safety is rolling back evidence-based commitments for reform


Unfortunately Deputies and Senators, it’s your constituents paying the price for these failures with their lives… and it’s breaking the hearts of the communities that experience these tragedies on an almost daily basis.



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