2026-02-05

I welcome the opportunity to address the House this afternoon to update it on road safety matters. I will be sharing my time with the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, will be delivering the closing statement. I would like to take the opportunity to offer my sincere condolences to the family of Grace Lynch. Neither the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, nor I can imagine the pain the family are going through and the sense of loss they are experiencing. To lose someone so obviously cherished by her family is a traumatic event. The direct reason for this debate on road safety matters is the tragic accident that happened to Grace Lynch. There will obviously be significant Government and enforcement responses to that. I also want to update Deputies about the unfolding accident on North Earl Street involving a bus and a pedestrian. I regret to say there has been a fatality and three others have been taken to hospital. Our thoughts are with the family of the person who has been fatally injured and the people who are in hospital. We wish them well. As a society, we find ourselves all too often expressing these condolences arising from serious road traffic accidents. Already in 2026, too many people have been lost on the roads in Ireland and we are just over one month into the new year. We need to grasp the simple reality in front of us. Reckless behaviour, selfish choices, excess speed, drink and drug driving, distracted driving and not wearing a seatbelt are all choices and behaviours on our roads that, as we know, lead inevitably to death, destruction and despair. For my part, I want to be clear that the Government is committed to reducing road deaths and creating safer roads for everyone in Ireland. However, this will not be possible without behavioural change. We have done it before, and we now need to do it again. In 1997, almost three decades ago, there were 472 fatalities on Irish roads. That was an extraordinarily number of lives lost and, thankfully, today we do not have such high figures. That year marked a turning point for road safety in Ireland. In 1998 implementation began on the first national road safety strategy. Over the course of that strategy and its successors, we witnessed a remarkable improvement in safety on our roads, as deaths began to fall. From 472 deaths in 1997, we reduced the figure to 162 by 2012, with a further reduction to 133 by 2021, which was the lowest level since records had begun in 1959. Road safety strategies and measures taken by successive Governments have played a very important role in reducing deaths on our roads. However, these improvements have also only been possible as a result of a great many of us changing and improving our behaviours on the road. Unfortunately, more recent trends are less positive and the gains we have made are beginning to slip. Last year saw an increase in road deaths, with 188 fatalities on our roads. That is a very significant number. That is 188 families and communities experiencing tragedy and loss and attending funerals of loved ones. Not only that, but for every fatality there are eight serious and possibly life-changing injuries. We obviously need to do better. For my part as Minister for justice, I am determined to see a return to the progress we have seen previously and know we can achieve. Enforcement is a key aspect of ensuring greater safety on our roads and the Garda continues to play a key role in prioritising road safety. This includes the implementation of 30 minutes of high-visibility road safety policing per garda shift. That was introduced in April 2024. In addition, since May 2024, the powers and provisions introduced by the Road Traffic Act 2024 mean that An Garda Síochána can now conduct mandatory drug testing at the scene of serious collisions. This is facilitated by the provision of tens of thousands of drug rapid testing kits by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety each year. I welcome the significant awareness campaign the Road Safety Authority ran last year highlighting these drug-driving enforcement powers and capabilities. Since November 2023, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland has been providing insurance details to An Garda Síochána. Details for 3 million vehicles and 5 million drivers are provided daily to identify vehicles being driven without insurance. The Garda continues to carry out enhanced road safety and traffic enforcement campaigns, with the latest over the recent St Brigid's bank holiday weekend. Over the weekend, An Garda Síochána and mobile and fixed GoSafe cameras detected nearly 3,500 motorists speeding. The highest volume of detections was on bank holiday Monday, with over 800 speeding detections. A total of 193 drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of an intoxicant. Nearly 400 drivers were detected for driving while using a mobile phone. Over 660 vehicles were detained by members of An Garda Síochána, with 50% for no insurance. This serves to highlight that some people continue to behave badly on our roads and make poor choices, the consequence of which is endangerment of fellow road users and in particular vulnerable road users. Despite this concerted effort by the Garda, unfortunately, over the course of the weekend there were two fatalities and 14 serious injury incidents due to collisions. We must redouble our efforts on all fronts to further ensure road safety for all. We need to ensure that enforcement is effective, but it is also about behavioural change on the part of drivers on the roads. We need to slow down and be more careful.

I too extend my deepest sympathies to the family of Grace Lynch. Her death leaves an unfillable void in their lives and the lives of her friends and the wider community. Regarding the accident that happened in Dublin city centre this afternoon, our thoughts are with the families who are affected by that accident and everybody involved. Yesterday, we announced that we will introduce regulations as a matter of urgency to further prohibit the use of scramblers and strengthen the existing enforcement powers that An Garda Síochána has in relation to the dangerous use of scramblers and powers of seizure. These regulations will be introduced within a matter of weeks. Currently, under the Road Traffic Act 1961, a mechanically propelled vehicle, such as a scrambler, can only be legally used in public places if it is registered, taxed, insured, roadworthy and has a registration plate. The driver must hold the relevant driving licence. Most scramblers are designed for off-road use only and do not meet these requirements. Their use on the road is illegal. To further strengthen the legal position and help tackle the antisocial use of scramblers and other off-road vehicles, the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023 introduced three new provisions. It is now an offence to drive dangerously in any location, not just in public places. Gardaí have the power to seize vehicles being driven dangerously. The Minister for Transport can make regulations to restrict certain vehicles or classes of vehicles in particular locations. These three provisions are designed to work as a package and should be read together. They were all commenced in July 2023, one month after the enactment of the Act. Since commencement, off-road scramblers are no longer just illegal for use in public areas. It is illegal to drive them dangerously anywhere, even on private land. More importantly, gardaí have the full power to seize a scrambler being driven dangerously in any location. They can enter the curtilage of a dwelling to retrieve a scrambler after the fact. These powers are being used. Since 2023, over 1,000 scramblers, e-scooters and quad bikes have been seized. The measures I outlined represent a comprehensive legislative response to the dangerous use of off-road scramblers. It must be emphasised that using them on our roads is already illegal. The new regulations will help bring additional legal clarity to the existing position that scramblers are banned for use on the road in almost all circumstances. The regulations being prepared will explicitly prohibit the use of vehicles such as scramblers in a public place while continuing to allow for legitimate off-road recreational and agricultural uses. They will make the use of a vehicle, such as a scrambler, in these prescribed locations an offence, building on the current position where a member of An Garda Síochána has to form a reasonable belief about dangerous use before it can be seized. They will also increase the charges that accrue each day after a scrambler has been seized to reduce the number of seized vehicles that are released and end up back on our roads. While the focus has rightly been on scramblers in recent weeks, as we approach the two-year mark since e-scooter regulations were introduced in May 2024, it is now appropriate that we look at the evidence and consider if additional regulation is warranted to promote road safety in relation to e-scooters. Proposals on this front will be presented to the Government shortly. The current national framework for road safety is set out in the Government’s fifth Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, which was launched in December 2021. The strategy aligns with EU and UN targets and is based on the 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 our roads, by 2050. In July 2025, I published phase 2 of the action plan under the road safety strategy, which will run from 2025 to 2027. In total, the plan contains 12 primary and 77 support actions, with the potential to deliver transformative changes. Actions will be delivered through partnership and collaborative working by road safety stakeholders. Some of the key actions include: investing significantly into new and improved active travel and public transport; expanding network safety analysis of the road network to identify high-risk locations, guide investment decisions and prioritise safety interventions including for the local road network; 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. Implementation of the speed limit review published in 2023 is a key action under the road safety strategy. The review made three principal recommendations: a reduction in the default speed limit on rural local roads from 80 km/h to 60 km/h, the introduction of a 30 km/h default speed limit in built-up and urban areas, and a reduction in the default speed limit on national secondary roads from 100 km/h to 80 km/h. The first of the recommendations came into effect on 7 February 2025, when the default speed limit on rural roads decreased from 80 km/h to 60 km/h. This represented a reduction in speed on 80% of the road network in Ireland. This impacts approximately 83,000 km of Ireland's 102,000 km network. It involved the installation of approximately 27,000 new poles and over 50,000 new signs. With respect to the second of the recommendations, namely, the introduction of the 30 km/h default speed limit in built-up and urban areas, following direction from the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, my Department issued a circular to local authorities on 16 October 2025 requesting that they implement built-up and urban areas speed limits no later than 31 March 2027. The proposed speed limit changes in urban areas will be implemented by way of special speed limit by-laws. Accordingly, in respect of those roads in urban areas for which local authorities propose to change existing speed limits, local authorities will undertake a statutory public consultation process and consider all representations, in accordance with the requirements of the Road Traffic Act 2004, as amended. The approach that is now being followed recognises and respects the positive and important role local authorities and their elected members fulfil in setting speed limits in urban areas. The period of statutory public consultation will provide an opportunity for members of the public and stakeholders to engage with the process and to make representations to local authorities and their elected members on the proposed speed limit changes. The third recommendation under the proposed speed limit changes concerns the reduction of the default speed limit on national secondary roads from 100 km/h to 80 km/h. While the Road Traffic Act 2024 made legislative provision for this change, it has not yet been commenced as a further legislative change is required to ensure local authorities will be permitted to set a special speed limit of 100 km/h on certain national secondary roads, where appropriate. That amendment will be progressed in the national vehicle and driver file Bill. The increased deployment of safety cameras in the coming years is a key action to be delivered under the phase 2 action plan of the road safety strategy. This action, which is being delivered collaboratively by road safety partners, aligns with commitments in the programme for Government. Work on the first national safety camera strategy is now at an advanced stage. My Department is working closely with road safety stakeholders, including the National Transport Authority, NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the Road Safety Authority, RSA, and An Garda Síochána, on how best to implement it. The strategy focuses on speeding, red light running and bus lane infringements, with flexibility for the enforcement of other types of offences in future. It is expected that the strategy will be approved in the coming weeks. Once in place, it will provide 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. While work continues on finalising the strategy, camera enforcement has been increasing. There are 9,000 hours of GoSafe monitoring carried out on our roads each month. Since late 2024, An Garda Síochána has worked with TII and local authorities to install three additional average speed camera zones and nine static camera locations. Long-standing issues are also being addressed. Currently, learners can renew their permits multiple times if they have booked or scheduled a driving test. This will no longer be the case. In November, I signed regulations to ensure learner drivers can no longer repeatedly renew their permits without taking a driving test. These regulations will come into effect on 1 November 2026. Learners who have held a permit for seven years or more will not be able to renew and will have to restart the learning to drive process. For learners in category B, this means taking a theory test, obtaining a learner permit, taking 12 essential driver training lessons and sitting a practical test. Seven years is more than enough time for learners to complete the learning process and become qualified drivers. From a road safety perspective, it is vital that learners are encouraged to complete the learning to drive process and become fully qualified drivers and that people are not encouraged to hold learner permits without ever taking a driving test. Road safety is promoted by ensuring all learners meet a high standard of ability, attain sufficient driving experience and training and prove their ability to drive safely by passing a driving test. We are also progressing a significant legislative programme. The national vehicle and driver file Bill is a priority for the current legislative term. I aim to see it enacted before the summer recess. The Bill contains a range of provisions to modernise road safety enforcement, improve the use of data and address identified gaps in road traffic legislation. Among other measures, the Bill will: provide a clear legislative basis for local authorities to directly receive and process road collision data; abolish the requirement to display a motor tax disc as part of the wider paperless windscreen project; allow a jury to consider a charge of careless driving where a defendant is acquitted of dangerous driving, thereby addressing a gap identified in Judge Haughton's report into the death of Shane O'Farrell; and provide legislative clarity on the application of penalty points in multiple-offence incidents, ensuring drivers committing more than one offence in a single incident receive multiple sets of penalty points. My officials are also progressing the next road traffic Bill to take forward key programme for Government commitments. A general scheme will be presented to the Government in the coming months. Among other things, the Bill will provide for a graduated penalty points system designed to strengthen deterrence and address repeat offending. It will also make provision for camera enforcement of seat belt and mobile phone offences, building on existing non-intercept Garda powers in relation to speed. The safety of all road users continues to be supported through improvements in infrastructure and services. To that end, in 2025, approximately €600 million in Exchequer capital funding was allocated through TII to local authorities for national roads. This included funding for measures to maintain and improve the existing national road network, in addition to funding for new national road projects such as the M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy, the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge and the Adare bypass. In addition, €33 million in current funding was provided to local authorities to carry out regular maintenance activities on the network. A further €713 million was allocated to regional and local road grants in 2025, with approximately 90% of the funding directed towards maintenance and renewal works. This funding has supported local authorities in carrying out an extensive programme of maintenance and restoration works. It also supported various safety improvement works, bridge rehabilitation schemes, drainage works, climate adaptation measures, community involvement projects and the maintenance of former national roads. In addition to maintenance, targeted improvements are a priority. This action has been identified for progress under the national development plan. The 2026 allocations for national, regional and local roads will be finalised and announced shortly. Education and public awareness campaigns are also key to promoting safer behaviours on our roads. Primary action 9C of the road safety phase 2 action plan specifically addresses the expansion of road safety education programmes to deliver sustained interventions for young people from primary school through to third level. The new Road Safety Matters transition year programme was piloted during the 2024-25 academic year and exceeded expectations, with the RSA successfully delivering training to teachers from almost 140 schools and more than 12,700 students nationwide. In 2026, the RSA aims to complete a national roll-out to all 730 post-primary schools offering transition year. In addition, the RSA aims to scale its junior cycle road safety education for children aged 13 to 16 years, with a view to launching a national roll-out next year. In 2025, the RSA launched its new third level education initiative, engaging students at 62 campus events and reaching approximately 8,955 young people nationwide. The programme's mission is to empower 17- to 24-year-olds to make safer road choices by embedding road safety into everyday student life. In 2026, the RSA will proactively re-engage every third level campus in Ireland and roll out a new phase of student-led road safety communications. As part of budget 2025, €18 million of RSA funding was ring-fenced for road safety public interest activities, including awareness, education and promotion campaigns. This was part of a wider shift to bring a renewed focus on campaigns that make our roads safer for all users. Significant new national campaigns were delivered in 2025, including a drug-driving campaign and a major new drink-driving campaign. This approach will continue in 2026, with €18 million once again set aside for similar campaigns and initiatives. Road safety is an all-of-society concern and it is beholden on all of us to make better choices for safer roads. Recent tragedies bring into sharp focus the human cost of every fatality on Irish roads. Any death is one too many. Work continues to progress on delivering our road safety targets but much is yet to be done to protect lives on our roads. I look forward to the contributions of Deputies on this very important topic.

Now we will move to Sinn Féin. Deputy Pa Daly who is sharing with four others.

At the outset, I wish to sympathise with the family of Grace Lynch and also with anyone who was affected by the collision on North Earl Street this morning. In the light of all of this, and the increase in the roads deaths in 2025 - 190 people died on our roads last year, that is, 190 families shattered, 190 chairs empty at kitchen tables and 190 sets of hopes and dreams suddenly cut short - I want to pick the Minister of State up on what he said about whether the powers An Garda Síochána has are being used. Is he seriously saying the Garda is using those powers enough? We have seen certain pockets around the country, such as in Limerick, where gardaí know who are using these scramblers illegally and have the powers to go in and seize them. The Minister of State mentioned that they can enter the curtilage of homes and take the scramblers. I understand that in all the circumstances where such scramblers were seized by the Garda in the Limerick area, not one protest or court case was brought by families trying to get them back. It is simply not correct, or else it is disingenuous, to say the powers are being used because they are clearly not being used enough around the State. Of course we need trained Garda scrambler units, and drones and other technology that already exists but has not been used, but we need the Garda to use the powers it has, go into homes and take those scramblers off our streets because that clearly has not been happening. We also need accountability for the adults who are providing these scramblers to the mostly young men who are using them. We need stricter regulation of e-scooters also, not just keeping up with what is there. Helmets and hi-vis gear must be mandated and proper enforcement needs to be used by An Garda Síochána against those who are using e-scooters at over 20 km/h. The serious injuries, including the massive increase percentage-wise of horrific brain injuries to mostly young men, demand that stricter action be taken by using the powers that are already there, and that is clearly not being done. In 2020, as the Minister of State mentioned, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael committed to Vision Zero to drastically reduce fatalities by 2050. Not only have they failed to reduce road deaths, however, but deaths have increased, whereby we had 190 deaths last year, the highest level in more than a decade. The Minister of State's colleague in government mentioned earlier that statistics had been brought down in 2021 to a low point but did not say that this was in the middle of the Covid pandemic when there were fewer people on the road. Using that as a statistic is not painting the full picture, to put it mildly. This is a failure of responsibility, a failure of investment and a failure of leadership, not only by this Government but by the last Government. While Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their supporters Deputies Healy-Rae and the regional Independents will point to the fact that there are flashy announcements, reports and new legislation, it does not really amount to anything meaningful. The Minister of State has already rowed back on a commitment to disband the RSA, as had been recommended by an independent review commissioned by the Government. It was announced at the time when the review was published with much fanfare but it has resulted in no meaningful change - change that is much needed. Did it really have to take another tragedy on our roads to bring about legislation that Sinn Féin has been calling for for over a decade and a half? Unless the legislation is actually enforced, of course, it means very little to the people it is supposed to protect. Let us be clear: road policing is at crisis point. It has been for some time. In September 2025, there were only 640 gardaí in roads policing units across the entire State. Despite repeated promises to get this in order, there are barely any more than there were in 2024 and 406 fewer gardaí than there were in 2009. These are more empty promises at a time when road deaths have been increasing. There has been a decrease in road policing numbers. The deaths are increasing. The Minister of State needs to step up and give us the reason for this and the excuse. There was also another independent review of a system that was defined by a culture of poor performance in An Garda Síochána. What steps has the Minister of State taken to address gardaí parking up for shifts, turning off automatic number plate recognition, ANPR, systems and operating without supervision? The number of deaths demands an answer to that.

My thoughts are with all those impacted by the crash in Dublin today and the family of Grace Lynch. The year 2025 was the worst year for road fatalities in over ten years and represented a growing trend of Irish roads becoming less safe. Last year, An Garda Síochána recorded 190 people dying on our roads and over 1,000 people being injured as a result of collisions. Each statistic represents a life lost, a wider family devastated, and demonstrates the constant work needed to make our roads safe for all who use them. In 2024, a report commissioned by the then Minister for Transport recommended the splitting of the RSA into two separate bodies; one with responsibility for road safety and another to oversee processes such as driver testing. Despite the tone of the Department of Transport's initial reaction stating that the report's recommendations would radically transform road safety in Ireland, we recently saw the Minister of State backtrack on these plans. Sadly, this backtracking reflects a wider failure by the Government to implement road safety actions and infrastructure across the State. We see this also in the Government's failure to ensure legislation and regulation is fit for purpose and enforced in relation to scrambler bikes, which are terrorising many communities across the State. This is something that has been raised by my colleagues in the House for many years. In my constituency, Galway East, many towns and villages have seen road safety projects delayed. This is having a significant impact on safety in those areas. In Dunmore, I recently attended a protest, as did the Minister of State, where hundreds of residents expressed their frustration at the failure to progress the Bridge Street regeneration and road widening project. Bridge Street is a bottleneck for users of the N83. The junction there is also a major safety risk. It is a scandal that a street anywhere would be left in such a dangerous and derelict condition, never mind one on a national road. Residents have waited years for these promised improvement works. That must be prioritised for delivery. In Headford, local residents have been voicing concerns for years about the area surrounding the Cloughanover junction on the N84, a national road. This is an extremely busy road in an area with shops, a community centre and a school nearby, yet cars can fly by at 100 km/h. I met local residents there recently. It is absolutely lethal. That also appears to have been put on the long finger. The town of Kinvarra has also seen little progress in seeing much-needed pedestrian crossings and traffic calming measures installed on the N67 through the village. This is a very busy road. A lot of students use this road to walk to and from school. There have been a number of accidents in the village recently, yet the local community cannot get as much as a pedestrian crossing, which they have been demanding for years. There are countless other examples but the likes of these projects need to prioritised.

This debate is on road safety. I will tell the Minister of State all about road safety in County Wexford and the area of south Wicklow where I live. We have been forced to drive on deadly, dangerous roads for three decades now. I am sure the Ceann Comhairle will verify this. Roads are disintegrating in front of our very eyes; I kid you not. Even today, on the East Coast FM news, an engineer said he had to close many roads in south Wicklow for safety reasons because they had been washed away, and they were like this before the flood. County Wexford was at the bottom of the intercounty roads comparison study back in 1995. Three decades later, we are still at the bottom. When I meet oncoming traffic at night, say if I am coming from Leinster House or wherever, I am on narrow, winding, uneven back roads so I have to make a split-second decision as to whether to swerve across the road to avoid a massive pothole that will burst my car's tyres, wreck its rims and knock off the tracking of the steering. We do not bother doing tracking any more because it is a pointless exercise. There are deep, sharp craters with jagged edges on them and most of them are hidden beneath pools of water because there is a huge amount of surface water. It is absolutely infuriating that the Government does not view this as a primary road safety concern. It is all down to Government funding because there has been a deficit of €66 million since 2008 in County Wexford. We have 2,000 km of tertiary and secondary roads. They are so neglected now that the head of engineering in Wexford sent a document to the Oireachtas last year saying we would need €190 million to bring these roads up to what would be classed as a passable state. Just under 30% are in need of complete reconstruction. This is the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about in terms of road safety. We are anxiously awaiting the funding announcement to local authorities. I was raising this for ten and a half years on the council. I have been writing every week as a TD to the Minister's office. It will be like the lad in "The Shawshank Redemption" - I will write twice a week if I do not get a reply soon. I may have to hold people back. People are so angry over this because nobody is listening. The Minister's own quote is "the objective is to allocate funding to eligible local authorities on [an] equitable a basis ... taking the length of the road network into account." It is the complete wrong metric to approach-----

Thank you, Deputy. I call Deputy Maurice Quinlivan.

I have only spoken for two minutes.

The Deputy was scheduled to speak for two and a half minutes.

I was told I had three minutes, but anyway.

I am sorry about that, Deputy. I call Deputy Maurice Quinlivan.

As we talk about road safety, we do so with the backdrop of the tragic, avoidable death of teenager Grace Lynch in Finglas on Sunday, 25 January. She was a teenager who left her house and was struck by a scrambler on her home estate - a young life snatched away in its prime. I extend my deepest sympathies to her family and friends during this most difficult time for them. I welcome news that new laws are being introduced to implement the total ban on scramblers in public spaces and to strengthen existing laws for gardaí. However, more could and should have been done, and done sooner. I firmly believe that if scramblers were being used in more affluent areas across the State, a swift and robust response would have followed, but working class communities, as usual, were abandoned. I recently asked the Minister a parliamentary question. He said he was satisfied with the existing legislation dealing with the misuse of scramblers. In an answer provided to me on 15 January 2026, the Minister of State stated, "Both I and my Department are satisfied with the current regulations in place." I would like to know what has changed since then. This is not a new issue. The scourge of scrambler bikes have plagued residents of working class estates for years. My party has been consistently looking for the Government to act. I have spoken here many times over the past decade on the danger of these vehicles. Tragically, the focus on this matter has come too late for Grace and her family. My colleague sitting next to me, Deputy Dessie Ellis, had previously introduced a Bill in 2012. Sinn Féin brought forward Bills in 2015, 2017 and 2021 that aimed to give An Garda Síochána more powers to stop individuals from using scramblers, but these Bills were blocked by the Government. In 2019, while debating legislation on scramblers, I said that I did not believe the legislation would address the issue, that it was a significant issue in Limerick and other places, and that these bikes were a "danger to children and result in intimidation for many residents [who] cannot live safely in their own homes." However, in Limerick, as Deputy Pa Daly pointed out in October 2023, when An Garda Síochána seized 44 scramblers and other off-road vehicles and five people were arrested over two days, the superintendent said, "We are acutely aware of the problem ourselves and can correlate the use of scramblers and e-scooters to criminal activities with [several] detections in the sale and supply of drugs in recent months." My time is short. While the Minister of State looks at dealing with scramblers, this tragic death must compel the Government to ensure that these scramblers are taken off public roads and spaces for good, and that it also seizes this opportunity to address the safety issues concerning horses in urban areas and that e-scooters being driven illegally and not complying with road regulations are seized as well.

I want to be associated with the words of sympathy in relation to the crash on Dublin's North Earl Street. I only have a couple of minutes. I wanted to focus on the dangerous and antisocial use of scramblers on our streets and green spaces. It is nothing new, as my colleagues have said. In a lot of cases, it is young men and boys speeding around dressed in black, some of them in balaclavas, creating an extreme risk to adults, children and particularly our older neighbours in our communities. For years, colleagues have been trying to force the Government to tackle this issue. As has been said, it goes back as far as 2012. Deputy Dessie Ellis has raised it. I think the Deputy had sponsored four Bills at one stage. It is with tragic irony that Grace Lynch lost her life in Finglas, the very area that he represents. Back in 2014, we were told by the then junior Fine Gael agriculture Minister that "clear and adequate systems and structures [are] in place". Three serving Fine Gael Ministers voted against us on that occasion and said adequate legislation was there. Again, we are in that situation. The Minister of State said he is going to act. That is good, but people want to see that action. In a lot of cases, what we are seeing is a situation that is getting worse. I raised this issue two years ago, when an elderly woman in my own constituency was knocked down by a scrambler motorbike. I was talking to her husband today. She is still recovering. It has an impact on her physically, but there is also the mental impact. Eileen survived that crash in Killinarden, but two years later Grace Lynch did not. It is time for action.

I express my sympathies and that of the Labour Party to the pedestrian who died and the three other people who have been injured in Dublin city centre this afternoon in a terrible crash. Where do we start on road safety? A total of 190 lives were lost on our roads last year, the highest since 2014. We need to get a grip on this. I am not sure that the Minister of State has the political will or the courage to do so. We do not need new laws that we have heard trumpeted in the past few days. We have loads of existing laws on speeding, penalty points and driver behaviour. We just need enforcement - relentless enforcement. We have not seen any urgency from this Government in providing the resources to facilitate this enforcement, whether it is additional gardaí or traffic cameras. We were told there would be 150 new recruits into the Garda traffic corps over the past two years. We got about half that. Pre-recession, the Garda traffic force was around 1,300 strong. Now it is somewhere between 600 and 750. It has been decimated. The number of traffic gardaí has been cut in half, and, at the same time, about a million new cars have been added to our roads. Is it any wonder that it is like the wild west on our roads now? I do not think this Government gets road safety. First, the Government has completely undermined the commitment in the Road Traffic Act to introduce a default urban speed limit of 30 km/h across the country. Lower speed limits work. Let us look at Wales. Road casualties dropped by 25% in the 18 months after they introduced a similar measure. The Minister's approach now is to make this an individual county councils to decide themselves. It undermines the national nature of this measure. We know that many county councils are going to struggle to pass these laws. They have to do it. They have to pass individual by-laws for every road that they want to make a 30 km/h zone, rather than a blanket urban area of 30 km/h. It is just not the way to do it. The Government's change in policy regarding the RSA is also hugely concerning. There is an inherent conflict at the heart of the RSA; it is both poacher and gamekeeper when it comes to vehicles on our roads. On the one hand, the RSA is funded by driving tests and the NCT, and on the other, it is tasked with making our roads safer via restrictions on car use. While it is doing well in reducing driving test wait times, it is failing miserably when it comes to road safety. All it does is act as some kind of PR firm, doing photo-ops with Ministers and trying to wrap our children and vulnerable road users generally in high-vis clothing, as though that will keep them safe. The Government must split up the RSA as recommended by an external independent review and endorsed previously by the Government. The Minister of State has basically said that the RSA has got driving test wait times down, so let us leave it alone. We also heard that cost was an issue in this decision. That the Department would penny-pinch on this is pretty appalling. What does it say about our attitude to road safety? What does it say about the value we are placing on those people's lives? Another issue I want to touch on is this proposal or gimmick coming out of Cabinet over the past few days around mandatory high-vis gear and helmets for cyclists. The fact that this is even being proposed betrays a lack of seriousness and a lack of understanding of exactly what is making our roads unsafe. Road safety is not a personal protective equipment issue. Treating it as such shifts responsibility onto the potential victims, rather than addressing the actual causes of road danger such as road user behaviour, speed, vehicle design, safe infrastructure and so on. There is no credible evidence to suggest that helmets or high-vis mandates reduce collisions, serious injuries or deaths on our roads. Standard bike helmets are not designed to cushion the blow from a two-tonne SUV smashing into you at 50 km/h or 60 km/h, or a HGV rolling over you at a dangerous junction. The helmets are designed for low-speed falls, not collisions involving cars or HGVs, whose size and speed far exceed the conditions that helmets are tested for. Most cyclists wear helmets anyway. If the Government wants to encourage more of that, just make helmets free, rather than making it an offence not to wear one. International evidence shows that helmet mandates result in a reduction in cycling, which, in turn, leads to higher emissions, worse public health outcomes and essentially criminalises cycling. I met with the Climate and Health Alliance this morning, who, like me, are appalled by this proposal. The NTA wants to increase the number of cyclists by 14% by 20, which is not a hugely ambitious target. How will criminalising certain forms of cycling lead to an increase in cycling? It will undermine the Dublinbikes scheme and other city bike schemes around the country that we are currently trying to expand. The beauty of cycling is the freedom it gives, the ability to pick up a bike on a whim, enjoy the wind in your hair and to just go where you want to go, but cycling is terrifying, particularly in Dublin. I cycle all the time and I also drive. I wear a helmet and high-vis on my bike but I do not feel safe. I have to presume that everything else on the road is trying to kill me every minute I am on it. I get a chill of fear any time on my bike when I stick my hand out to change lane with my son on the back seat of the bike. Is the driver behind me watching? Will they let me into the lane? Are they paying attention or are they on their phone? Are they staring at the iPad-type screen displays that are in cars now? Are they slowing down sufficiently? Can I make contact with the driver to ensure they know I am there? All these checks, fears and chills you get, you never get when you are driving a car - never. We know what we need to do to make our roads safer: lower speeds; well-designed junctions; segregated walking and cycling infrastructure; proper road maintenance, as mentioned; and relentless enforcement of the rules of the road via gardaí and cameras. This is not just on bank holiday weekends and for Christmas but all the time. Attempts at mandating helmets and high-vis gear are a distraction and a gimmick to make it look like the Government is doing something. It is an exercise in victim-blaming that does nothing to address the actual dangers to cyclists and other vulnerable road users. Any proposal to extend mandates from e-scooters and high-powered e-bikes to ordinary bikes would represent a major policy regression contradicting both international best practice and the Government's own ambitions with regard to active travel and public health. I will briefly touch on the scrambler issue. I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Grace Lynch. Every parent will have been touched by the incredible bravery shown by Grace's mother Siobhán in the wake of such an unimaginable tragedy. The Government will have the Labour Party's support in any efforts to take scramblers off our roads and public spaces.

I thank my colleague Deputy Ahern for providing me with some time to address a matter the Minister of State knows is very close to my heart and the hearts of the people of Drogheda. I have a very straightforward question for him. Where is Drogheda's new permanent driving test centre? He and I have engaged on this on a number of occasions in recent weeks. I appreciated the helpful updates he provided. For the benefit of the House, it is worth recording that in July of last year, the RSA said that the new driving test centre in Drogheda would be open and up and running in August. What then followed were a series of "nearly there" statements from the RSA that are in effect continuing without any public statements, at least, clarifying exactly where we are at the moment. There is a huge amount of frustration in my community. Drogheda is the largest town in the country that has yet to become a city. The fact is we do not have even a temporary centre at this point. The temporary centre was closed a short number of years ago and not replaced. It should have been, in the interim, to allow for the permanent centre to be developed. The fact we do not have it is a disgrace. The profile of the population in the area is very young. People who are actively seeking to get into the workforce, or maybe to change job where they are required to have a driving licence, are required to go to already stretched centres in Navan and Dundalk. Admittedly, the numbers have come down in Navan and Dundalk, thanks to the work of the Minister of State and the RSA. We know that the testers who were taken on with the intention of working at the Drogheda centre in late August or early September have been deployed to other regional centres to address issues with the list. It is not unrealistic to expect that young people who are living in one of the largest urban areas in the country would be able to have their driving test done in their home community on the roads with which they are familiar and drive on with their instructors. This is something that needs to be addressed. I would appreciate it very much if at the end of this debate, the Minister of State could put on the record the very clear position of the RSA. I believe this will happen. I know technical issues have arisen. The RSA is committed to this. I absolutely accept that but it would be useful if a public statement were made recommitting to the permanent driving test centre in Drogheda and clarifying and confirming precisely when it will be in operation.

A Cheann Comhairle----

No, not at this stage.

I will not be here for the end of the debate but I will give the Deputy-----

The Minister of State can correspond.

I have a copy of the RSA's provisional review of fatalities for last year. I encourage all Members, as policymakers and legislators, to read this review because it reflects the crisis we have in this country when it comes to road safety. Last year, 190 precious lives were lost. They were 76 drivers, 21 passengers, 41 pedestrians, 14 pedal cyclists, 30 motorcyclists and three e-scooter-related deaths. Forty-five were under the age of 25 and 43 were over the age of 66. In my county of Tipperary, ten lives were lost compared to two the previous year. It is interesting to see the counties with the highest numbers were Dublin at 22 and Cork at 21, yet, in counties such as Longford, there were zero fatalities. There was one fatality in Leitrim, one in Sligo and two in Cavan. Of course, behind all of these statistics are families who are absolutely devastated having lost a loved one. It is those families that guide me in my role as Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport. As the Minister of State knows, yesterday marked the first of a series of committee hearings focused on road safety. The committee is keen to move beyond just broad commentary to concentrate on enforcement, operational capacity, legislative gaps, licensing and regulatory gaps, the role of the RSA and other key stakeholders, shortcomings in data capture and data access. The goal is to frame clear, evidence-based proposals that can be implemented in the short to the medium term, with the ultimate goal being to save lives. I look forward to working with the Minister of State and I thank him for his close co-operation to date. I will focus on the matter of enforcement. Why is enforcement so crucial? It is because it shapes driver behaviour. The biggest cause of accidents on Irish roads is as a result of driver behaviour. We have got an urgent issue to address - the strength of our roads policing unit. What shocked me was the extent of non-compliance with existing legislation during the December period with the Garda operation of 10,000 checkpoints. During that period, there were: 26,500 speeding fines; 1,700 fixed penalty notices were issued with regard to mobile phone usage; 450 individuals were not wearing a seatbelt; 765 were arrested for either drunk or drug-driving; and, amazingly, 3,000 vehicles were seized at the side of the road for various offences, 60% of which did not have insurance. The reality is we have less than 650 gardaí currently in our roads policing unit. In 2009, that stood at 400 more, when we had perhaps 1 million less cars on Irish roads. In May 2024, former Commissioner Drew Harris appeared before the Oireachtas committee. He gave a commitment that by the end of 2025, 150 additional Garda members would be appointed to the roads policing unit. Unfortunately, assistant commissioner Gunne, in a recent appearance before the committee, confirmed that only 50% of those posts had been filled. Notwithstanding any outcomes of our Oireachtas hearings on road safety, my appeal to the Minister of State is that the number one priority be enforcement. Enforcement shapes driver behaviour. It is about enforcement of existing road traffic legislation. Driver behaviour matters. It is not good enough that we simply say that numbers in our roads policing unit are a matter for the Garda Commissioner. We have to strengthen our roads policing unit. We have to get back to where we were in 2009, with 1,000 members. That is the number we need in our roads policing unit.

I will use my time to discuss the scourge of scramblers on our streets and in our communities. I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to the family of Grace Lynch in Finglas. Her death has devastated a family, shaken a community and forced a national reckoning with the criminally dangerous use of scramblers and other vehicles. Grace had her whole life ahead of her and there are no words that can lessen the pain her loved ones and the wider community are suffering. I welcome the legislation that is being brought forward to ban these vehicles from our streets but we have to be honest and admit this could have been done a long time ago. It should not have taken the death of young Grace to spur action. In my community, we are all too familiar with the reckless use of scramblers. We see youths with no helmets who are ballied up speeding up and down roads and footpaths, doing wheelies against the flow of traffic, beckoning and jeering at gardaí and having no regard for their safety or that of others. This is sheer thuggery and part of a systematic wider criminality where vehicles are used to intimidate and terrorise local communities and as mules for the transport and dealing of illegal drugs at ease. There is now a section of society that has become untouchable because it is not being pursued and facing the full rigours of the law. Middle management in An Garda Síochána is hesitant to order chases of suspects because it cannot afford to have personnel tied up or suspended because of a Fiosrú investigation. However, as a country we cannot surrender to lawlessness. We have to empower our gardaí to ensure they can pursue those using scramblers in public areas. To do this, we must consider a statutory indemnity for members of An Garda Síochána who act reasonably and within strict protocols, like that of the London Metropolitan Police, to ensure they are not unfairly penalised for doing their jobs. We need a system of electronic tagging for e-scooters, e-bikes and scramblers so they can be traced from retailers to consumers. Ultimately, there must be a fear of consequences. The law must be applied with full rigour to ensure recklessness, thuggery and criminality are met with appropriate punishment. We cannot compromise on this. We owe it to the Lynch family and every family in Ireland to ensure our public spaces are no longer playgrounds for criminals or those with scramblers. I will also touch on the use of sulkies. We have seen recent incidents around Dublin and in Limerick-----

Thank you, Deputy.

-----where they have been used recklessly and put lives in danger.

I thank the Ministers of State for being here to facilitate this important discussion on road safety. Looking at road safely overall in the past few decades, significant progress has been made and that has to be acknowledged. We went from 472 lives lost in 1997 to 137 lives lost in 2021. However, unfortunately, the progress has halted and we have seen an increase in fatalities on our roads in recent years. Last year, as the Ministers of State will be aware, 190 lives were lost on our roads. It is frustrating to see the trajectory going backwards, given the progress that had been made. The road safety strategy the programme for Government committed to is important in this respect to try to arrest the decline in progress. I share the concerns raised about scramblers. Many speakers spoke about that today. The progress in improved regulations and enforcement is important, as it is in relation to e-scooters. However, I want to focus on pedestrian safety today, in particular because it is also an important aspect of road safety. Last year 41 pedestrians lost their lives in road traffic incidents. That is a significant number. On the infrastructure to improve road safety for pedestrians and pedestrian crossings, there is a total lack of consistency in how crossings are designed and constructed. There are uncontrolled crossings, controlled crossings and zebra crossings. There is a lack of consistency in the road markings, signage and so on. Any road safety strategy will have to address that issue so we have consistency in the infrastructure to serve pedestrians. For example, the high incidence of the breaking of red lights at pedestrian crossings must be dealt with. There needs to be zero tolerance of this. We need to install cameras at busy pedestrian crossings to try to deal with this offence because it is very dangerous. It can have serious consequences and is prevalent, regrettably. We also need to look at our crossings. All pedestrian crossings should be raised platforms to make them safer. Again, there is a lack of consistency with that. Many new crossings have a raised platform but existing crossings do not. I ask that be taken on board. I share the concerns Deputy Michael Murphy raised earlier about the roads policing unit and replenishing the numbers in the traffic corps of An Garda Síochána.

Thank you, Deputy

This is critical because enforcement has to be a key part of road safety. I ask the Ministers of State to take that back.

Irish roads are growing increasingly dangerous with 190 people losing their lives in 2025. There have been some truly horrific accidents on our roads in the north east in recent years. I have no doubt the Ministers of State have the same reaction as the rest of us when they see reports of collisions and loss of life and that they absolutely wish to meet the objective of achieving vision zero, that there would be no deaths on Irish roads. I will highlight a few areas where the Government has got it wrong and ask the Ministers of State to reflect on and give consideration to these matters. The N2 Clontibret to the Border and Ardee to Castleblayney roads schemes are crucial to the north-east region for various reasons. Where the project scored the highest in an appraisal by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, was on safety, being appraised as highly positive for safety, which is the highest possible score. TII has described these works as suspended due to funding constraints. Therefore, my first request as we debate road safety today, is whether we can do a reappraisal of projects which are currently underfunded and give an additional level of priority on the basis of safety. Second, I welcome that recently during oral questions - and it was actually quite refreshing - the Minister conceded to my party and constituency colleague, Deputy Carthy, that Cavan and Monaghan County Councils have been constrained by resources in terms of road safety and maintenance and repair and that they have not received the funding they need. There was a ridiculous situation last year where almost half of the increased funding provided to councils was for speed limit signage rather than maintenance and repair. I understand the Minister had hoped to publish the local and regional road funding allocations by the end of last month so I would appreciate if the Minister of State could indicate in his closing remarks when it is intended to publish them. Given the Minister has acknowledged that Cavan and Monaghan have been underfunded, will the Minister of State provide reassurance that he intends to redress this and provide a substantial increase to both local authorities so we can address this matter?

Road safety is an issue in every part of the country. In recent weeks and today, we heard of yet more tragedies. I welcome any measures that can be taken to make road safety better but I will not hold my breath. These are some examples from my constituency, Dublin South Central. Calm Crumlin Road was set up a few years ago because of the absolute danger zone that road is. Two years ago, a woman was tragically killed on her bicycle and two years later - recently in November - another accident almost identical to that one happened, so nothing is happening in that area to make it safe for people to use it. The absolute tragedy of the intertwined lives that were impacted by that woman's death was recently spoken about on "Liveline". This is echoed throughout the country. Dublin South Central has scramblers. I would love to say it is scrambler city but I am sitting beside Deputy McAuliffe and scramblers are in his area and many other areas. I was coming home from work the other day and going towards Christchurch Cathedral and there was a scrambler doing a wheelie all the way up the road. This was a few days after that poor young woman in Finglas was tragically killed by a scrambler. Scramblers are a mode of transport for many young and older people. I am glad we are putting measures in place now but it has taken the death of a young person for that to happen. My heart goes out to that young woman's family and friends and all who loved her. I am a cyclist and the mother of cyclists and my heart is in my mouth half of the time because of the absolute state of the cycling infrastructure in this city. Kilmainham Lane is one example. It is a two-way road but it is only wide enough for one car and cyclists often bear the brunt of that. St. Cillian's National School in Bluebell has been begging for road safety measures outside the school. They have still not been implemented. That is an accident waiting to happen.

We are facing a road safety crisis in Ireland. It is worsening year on year. After a stint of progress earlier this decade, recent years have seen a deeply worrying trend of increasing deaths. There were 190 in 2025, 175 in 2024, 184 in 2023, and 155 in 2022. They are hundreds upon hundreds of people whose lives were tragically taken from them and families who have been destroyed by this. This is not for lack of policy, because we have the Vision Zero policy running from 2021 to 2030 which seeks to halve road deaths by 2030 and eliminate all road deaths by 2050. We are halfway through that time period now and the Government is not meeting the targets in that policy. We continue to see life after life being lost on our roads. Phase 1 of that policy, which ran from 2021 to 2024, saw investment of €3.8 billion. It had a target of 122 or fewer deaths. It was not met. Phase 2 runs until 2027 and we are halfway through that phase now. There is no target for that period. That speaks volumes and it seems to me that the Government has, unfortunately, given up on this. The overarching national target remains a 50% reduction by 2030, meaning annual deaths should at this point be down to 72 or fewer, which is still 72 too many. So far this year, we have seen 11 people lost on our roads. Policies mean nothing if implementation fails. What we are witnessing is a steady, consistent rise, year after year, at a time when our national strategy had promised to do the exact opposite. The Road Safety Authority, gardaí and indeed the Minister of State's Government colleagues have acknowledged the worsening trends and the need for a reset of approach, but the pace of change is simply too slow. Enforcement remains inconsistent and vulnerable road users are bearing an increasing share of this danger. Without a major acceleration in the delivery of road safety measures, we will see more people lose their lives on our dangerous roads. It is down to driving behaviour, speeding, congestion, lack of enforcement and deficits in infrastructure. There is no single solution to this, because a series of measures need to be taken on board and implemented. We are just not seeing movement on that quickly enough. I will talk about a road. Ideally, our roads would not be a priority for building. We have climate obligations. However, some of our roads are just so dangerous at the moment that there is a need to put resources into them to make them safer. I will specifically talk about the N81, which runs from Tallaght through west Wicklow and Kildare. It stands out for all the wrong reasons. It is the only road outside Dublin that has never been upgraded and is one of the major national roads still operating as a single-lane route for most of its length. Each morning, the N81 is a long line of red tail lights. A single collision, big or small, can bring the entire route to a standstill for hours. It is one of the most dangerous roads in the country. I and others have been calling for it to be addressed for years. Despite all these repeated calls, it was not included in the national development plan for 2027, and Government signals about it have been vague at best. While recent interactions have indicated that it may be advanced before 2030, no firm commitments, timelines or funding allocations have been given to me. I would appreciate if the Minister of State could look into this. A road as dangerous as the N81 cannot be left in limbo like this any longer. It needs to be brought to the same standard as other national routes in Ireland. As I said, there is not a single solution to road safety. What we are seeing is that many roads are at capacity now. We see increased congestion, which leads to more risk of accidents and poorer driver behaviour. A key element of the solution to this is improving our public transport. I know a stated aim of the Government is to improve public transport, but I and my constituency in Wicklow have not seen that happen. I will give an example. This morning, on East Coast Radio, a young woman, Mischa Cleary, was talking about how she had to drop out of her college course in Grangegorman, where she was doing politics. She had to drop out this year because she could not get public transport to college and she cannot afford to live there, the same as many other students. Her town was promised a bus, the 199 service. The NTA told me that funding was available for it last May and that it was a priority. It was meant to start in September. It still has not started. I have repeatedly raised this. Indeed, I have raised it with other Ministers too. I ask the Minister of State to look into this. It is not acceptable for a young student like Mischa to have to drop out of college because a simple Local Link has not been delivered nearly a year after it was meant to be.

I share my sympathies and condolences with everybody involved in the terrible accident this morning on North Earl Street. I am contacted regularly by my constituents in Dublin Rathdown about road safety issues. I will focus my comments today on cycling. There are so many topics I want to talk about but this is to get the best use out of my time. People contact me about things like the need for pedestrian crossings, new developments in Carrickmines, the need for traffic calming measures near schools in Churchtown, and concerns about the speed of traffic in particular residential areas in Ballinteer and Stillorgan, but the reality is that people overwhelmingly want to opt for active travel like walking and cycling. As we seek to encourage active travel as a viable alternative to driving, it is imperative that we address persistent safety issues. The safety of pedestrians and cyclists must be factored into our shared use of the roads. Funding for active travel has not been increased with inflation and we are seeing the cracks and shortcomings as a result of this. As a mode of transport, we have seen huge uptake of cycling over the last number of years. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has overseen transformative cycle infrastructure implementation. I commend it on its leadership in this space. On weekends in my local areas, I see families with cargo bikes travelling to places like Marlay Park, to sports training, and to visit friends and families by bike, which is all great, but this usage is curtailed by hazards and sometimes by real risk. A lack of segregated cycling infrastructure in areas with sections that are not connected creates unstable, unusable routes. A lack of education on the rights of cyclists for other road users and sometimes the rights of pedestrians is particularly prevalent. As has been raised by the Dublin Cycling Campaign and the Love 30 campaign, speed restrictions due to council-by-council assessment create inconsistency that also proves dangerous for cyclists on our roads. If we are serious about road safety and active travel, then co-ordinated planning and connected infrastructure funding and education on the rights of different categories of road users are all imperative. There is a lot to be positive about with the current road safety strategy, but to see further progress in this area, we must listen to pedestrians and cyclists.

I welcome the statements on road safety this afternoon. I am conscious of the dreadful accident in the city centre today that many Deputies have mentioned. I know everyone's thoughts and prayers in the House are with those affected, their families and indeed the emergency services that have responded. I welcome the series of decisive actions taken by the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, in response to the death of Grace Lynch. I put on the record my own condolences to the Lynch family. The danger posed by scramblers is an issue that I and my Dublin colleagues, Deputies McAuliffe and Lahart, have raised on numerous occasions in this House. We welcome Grace's law and we want to see it implemented as soon as possible. The Minister recently visited Dún Laoghaire, where we met senior gardaí to get an update on a range of issues, including the use of scrambler bikes, antisocial and criminal activity and the need for high-visibility products. Forty new gardaí have been deployed to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. These are welcome and are having a meaningful and visible effect. As raised by other Members of the House, enforcement is key to road safety. Risky behaviour like using a phone while driving, speeding, breaking red lights, or cycling without lights at night is unacceptable and we need to see continued enforcement. There must also be a focus on continuing to improve individual behaviour. The RSA, which has been into the House this week, has been proactive in this regard and should continue its work. This is about saving lives and preventing life-changing injuries. Locally, I welcome the recent allocation for schools such as St. Kevin's National School in Sallynoggin, which has long awaited road safety improvements on Pearse Street. I thank the Minister and his colleagues for decisively dealing with the issue of scramblers and I look forward to working with them to continue to make progress on road safety.

I thank my colleagues for giving me a little extra time on this issue. Last Friday, Father Séamus Aherne reminded the people of Finglas that 25 January was Burns night, celebrating the famous poet Robbie Burns, who spoke about old acquaintance not being forgot. I suppose for our community, as Father Aherne said, 25 January will be remembered as the day when our community was shaken by the tragic death of Grace Lynch, a 16-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her who was killed crossing a pedestrian crossing. There will be many victims of road traffic accidents but I just want to remember Grace's life for a moment. Grace's parents Siobhán and Martin have spoken about their daughter as a beautiful young girl. She was laid-back, she had a messy bedroom like many teenagers and she had an eye for borrowing a nice top that her mam might never get back. She spent her time with her friends and her boyfriend Harry. She would often take two buses rather than take a short walk. She lost her life due to a vehicle that should never have been in a public place. That is the reality of road safety. This is an issue on which many people have campaigned for a long time. We have campaigned on it because we see it at first hand in our communities. Last week, we were getting calls to our office from people who were angry, people who wished they had shouted louder and people who wanted to know what they could do, what powers An Garda Síochána had and what more the Government and An Garda Síochána could do. That is totally understandable so a lot of us welcomed the new regulations and laws this week, which will be known as Grace's law. There will be a ban on the use of scramblers in any public place. They will further strengthen the powers around safety, seizure and destruction. Of course, the 2023 Act put many measures in place that give An Garda Síochána powers like the ability to hold the bike for up to eight weeks and not to return it unless it is returned at the permission of the court, the ability to seize the bike from the court, the ability to fine an adult who supplies the bike to a child and the ability to prosecute an offence on the belief that dangerous driving has been taking place. Many laws were already being broken with regard to scramblers. Yes we have now added a fourth, fifth or sixth law but the question is how those six laws will be enforced. There is no point in us passing laws if they are not enforced. I understand An Garda Síochána has a very difficult job and that pursuit is a very high-risk pursuit for gardaí where the Garda is exposed, the person is exposed and the public is exposed - it is not easy - but there is now a range of powers. I believe that in operational terms, An Garda Síochána can put together measures that will tackle the very small number of people in our communities who hold these scramblers. As Father Aherne said, these young bucks will kill and be killed. Last week I spoke perhaps in anger but we will give the Garda Commissioner time now to operationalise these powers. However, it must be very quick. We need to make sure that An Garda Síochána has the resources, and the Minister is expected to provide them, and that gardaí at every level know their role, know what they can do, feel empowered and do not feel restricted. It is incredibly important that every Garda knows what he or she can do in terms of tackling scrambler bikes and that senior gardaí, including the Commissioner, put in place operations that use section 109A and sections 1 to 4, inclusive. They are all there to be used. We now want them to be enforced because another incident of this nature is just unthinkable. I welcome the measures announced this week. Having studied it for some time, it is more complicated than simply introducing a ban. There are other elements to it but it is incredibly welcome. As Siobhán said, she wants her daughter to be remembered. These laws will be known as Grace's law to remember her but the important thing now is that we put in place the measures to enforce them. Grace's mam was really clear; this was not an accident. She does not want to call it an accident. We need to ensure this can never happen again. I also acknowledge the loss of life in the city centre today and the families that were there.

I echo Deputy McAuliffe's calls regarding making sure that An Garda Síochána understands the powers it has and has all of the supports and equipment necessary to enforce these powers. My constituency borders that of Deputy McAuliffe. I express my condolences to Grace Lynch's family. What happened was horrific. There is a similar issue with scramblers in Santry in my constituency. We have to do everything we can to ensure that An Garda Síochána has the resources, manpower and technology to ensure this never happens again. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Transport this week, we heard about the stark and distressing rise in road fatalities. Again today, we have seen a major crash in Dublin city centre in which a number of pedestrians have been injured and, unfortunately and tragically, another person has lost their life leaving a family devastated. I am sure the thoughts and condolences of all of us in this House are with those affected today and the emergency service personnel who have had to deal with it. We know that reducing speed saves lives. At the transport committee this week, we heard overwhelming testimony from the witnesses that we have to reduce the speed on our roads. We have to achieve a default of 30 km/h in all urban areas. The Government has directed local authorities to reduce speed limits in built-up areas by March 2027 with investment, signage and implementation. We heard very concerningly from the witnesses this week that the procedures the local authorities have to undertake to implement these reduced speed limits are overly bureaucratic. They have to go out to public consultation and they have to pass it through votes. We need to see the Department of Transport really leading and supporting local authorities to deliver on this. Lives are being lost. We have to deliver reduced speed. All of the research tells us this. We have seen it in Spain and Wales and we need to see it here in Ireland before March 2027 but no later than March 2027.

Since my election, I have constantly raised the dangerous conditions and layout of roads across my constituency. Nowhere is this crisis more severe than in south Kilkenny along the N25. The stretch past the Rhu Glenn can be described as a deadly accident black spot. The statistics are not just numbers. They are families and communities left devastated. Over the past 40 years, more than 80 people have lost their lives on this road alone. In recent years, we have endured several fatal collisions. A road traffic report confirms what the local community already knows. Life will never be the same for these people and their families. They have to shout loudly. There have been delays and delays. This is not about manpower; this is about money. This road has been pushed beyond its limit with a 360% increase in users. It is not fit for purpose. While progress on an upgrade is under way, its pace is mind-bogglingly slow. Every month of delays is a gamble with lives. This is not an isolated issue. Across Ireland, our roads are becoming more deadly. We have seen this all too often. In Kilkenny, the N24 runs on from the N25 and is just as deadly. Extreme weather from flooding to relentless rainfall is ripping apart rural roads that are already in a poor state. On the quays in Thomastown, roads and walls are collapsing. Again, this is down to money, not manpower. We need a substantial increase in central funding to local authorities, not for patching potholes, but for proper repair, resilient materials and modern engineering that can withstand these new climate realities. Too often, the Government's sole answer to road safety is to lower speed limits. This is a pointless action if we lack the gardaí to enforce it. The facts are stark. Over the past 15 years, the number of gardaí in road policing has collapsed by a staggering 41%. As the roads have grown busier, the number of gardaí tasked with policing them has been nearly halved. This is an utter failure of policy by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The Minister speaks of recruiting new gardaí but he is silent on the high volume of experienced members leaving every month for police forces in the likes of Australia. We are losing our wealth of knowledge and experience. Addressing road safety demands accountability. We need a serious commitment to restore road policing units, and we need clear accountability from the leadership of An Garda Síochána for its performance around road safety.

First, I want to express my condolences to the family of the person who has died and those who were injured in what sounds like an awful crash in the north inner city. I hope there are no more deaths as a result. We are obviously here because of the tragic and awful death of 16-year-old Grace Lynch. I want to express my condolences to her family and friends. I also want to pay tribute to her mother, in particular, for the way that she spoke out so bravely and strongly and as a consequence we are now going to have Grace's law. Of course, it did not have to be Grace's law as this is legislation that was passed in 2023. A regulation could have been signed at any point since then but was not. It should not have taken this tragedy to force action by the Government because this is not a new issue. It is an issue that particularly affects working class communities. It has certainly been an issue for the entire time that I have been a TD in Dublin South-West. It has been a scourge in working-class communities. People try to go for walks in parks or wherever and they face the threat of being run down by someone on a scrambler. I got an email just last week from a woman saying that on several occasions she was forced of the path while pushing her four-month-old baby in her pram as riders deliberately sped towards them and performed wheelies directly in front of them. Her eight-year-old daughter now refuses to go for local walks out of fear of these bikes. That is not new and not the first contact like this I have received. I have received many over many years. The safety of working-class communities should not be ignored until tragedy strikes. That means far wider reaching preventative measures to protect our communities. It means banning the sale of scrambler bikes except to those who are in licensed clubs. It means investing in safety initiatives that target groups using scramblers. It means investing in diversion programmes, community outreach, sports and roads safety, which will go a lot further than having gardaí chase after teenagers on bikes.

Traffic volumes are up, speeds are up, and mobile phone use is up. I want to highlight the N80 that goes through Laois. Safety measures are needed in the village of Arles, which local councillors and local people have been years looking for. I handed in petitions to Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and Laois County Council demanding that traffic calming measure be put at each end of the village and that it be made safer for pedestrians with a pedestrian crossing, proper footpaths and improved signage. Laois County Council made a submission to TII long ago but it is not being funded. I want the Minister of State to take note of this. This needs to be funded by the Department and by TII. Drinagh, which is in the Mountmellick area, is on the N80 and also needs some traffic calming measures where traffic is coming from the west and into Mountmellick town. I want to raise the issue of local roads. We reduced the speed limit on local roads to 60 km/h, and this is a bone of contention for me. In my naivety, I thought we would see 80 km/h signs being removed and being replaced with 60 km/h signs all over the country. However, we got a white sign with lines across it. The only person in this room who can probably tell me what that means is the Ceann Comhairle because she is a former truck driver. I asked a number of TDs if they knew what the sign means and none of them did. We are the people who made the laws. Those signs are ineffective and need to be changed. We need a 60 km/h sign. We are asking for a bit of common sense here. Stripped lines across a white background do not tell people anything. The figure 60 tells them that this is the maximum speed. This is a common-sense measure. The speeds on local roads in Laois are crazy. There is a cohort of drivers driving like lunatics on them and that needs to stop. I want to raise the issue of e-bikes as well. I am in favour of e-bikes but now some of them are higher powered than motorbikes. If anyone here ever had a Honda 50 or a Honda 100, they had to have tax, insurance and a driver's licence for it. People can now have an e-bike that can do 70 km/h and 80 km/h. One passed me the other day and I was doing 65 km/h. He flew passed me on an e-bike that had tires the width of a good motorbike. That cannot be allowed to continue. We have to regulate them. People who drive them need to be licensed, taxed and insured. We should also make sure they know the rules of the road. We cannot continue like this. I also support the legislation on scrambler bikes.

It would be utter hypocrisy to begin a debate on road safety without mentioning that it does not just apply to 16 and 18-year-olds and that it also applies to TDs and that we have a TD in this House who was driving at 190 km/h. They could have killed anybody on that road that day only the gardaí arrived. It was the second time this person had an offence. They paid compensation to a family in 1990 when they were councillor. To be frank, it is utterly disgraceful that someone like that has not been mentioned by the Minister for justice. There was no political penalty except coming off a committee. They are still on other committees and they spoke here yesterday. It is not setting a very good example because, as I said, it is not just young people. I want to send my sympathy to the family of Grace Lynch. It is heartbreaking and her mother's call-to-action was inspirational. Scramblers should not be permitted on public roads or in public spaces. Forget about having tax and insurance, which is in the current law. They should not be on public roads. They are not suitable. They are far too dangerous. A person should need a licence to buy one or to sell one and should be part of a motor club which is where scrambling is actually meant to take place. In this context, I want to mention that when I was on the council, it took the initiative and set up a scrambler bike club in Mulhuddart where I live. It is now closed because the club is expected to pay the insurance, and it cannot get insurance. We have this scenario where clubs are using public facilities set up by councils. The clubs are then expected to find the insurance, so the public facilities are no longer in use. This has to stop. We should give young people that outlet so that they do not have the excuse to be on public roads and all local authorities should be involved in providing such facilities.

I had the opportunity to raise road safety with the Tánaiste earlier this afternoon. I was glad he was able to confirm that the ridiculous notion of a proposed mandatory requirement for helmets for people using a push bike is not going ahead. I welcome his confirmation of that. During that discussion, I also raised some of issues raised at the Joint Committee on Transport's meeting on road safety yesterday. Three key issues were raised by people who represent cyclists but other vulnerable road users as well. First, there is their concern about the U-turn with respect to the Road Safety Authority, RSA. There had been a clear agreement reached in the last Government to separate out that public information element and to let the RSA focus on that. That has been reversed and it will have to continue to try to do that while at the same time bring in its own income. That is not the right focus there. Second, there is the issue of 30 km/h zones in built-up areas. When I was on Fingal County Council, estates were fighting to be part of that pilot because they knew it would bring a greater degree of safety for communities, particularly for children. Somebody hit by a car travelling at 30 km/h has a 90% chance of surviving that crash. When the speed goes up to 60 km/h, there is almost a 100% likelihood that the crash will kill them. That is the difference. We have the power in law that makes it easy to bring in those 30 km/h zones across large parts of built-up areas but the decision has been made to make it harder with each local authority undertaking long, arduous processes to deliver what could be a life-saving decision for an area. People raised the Crowe report early last year and issues to do with policing, particularly the focus of An Garda Síochána in regard to roads policing. That really undermined confidence in people, whether they are in the car, on the bike or on foot. It is important that the Minister for justice give us an update on the response to that report.

I wish to talk about road safety in the context of the quality of our roads. I represent, as the Minister of State knows, a rural constituency with a huge number of regional roads where the county council is expected to maintain and improve road surfaces, but it cannot do that to the level we need without a major funding increase. I will give the Minister of State some examples of roads I am talking about: the old N7, now the R445, particularly in Toomevara village; the old N8, now the R639; the Cloughjordan to Borrisokane road; the Cloughjordan to Nenagh road; and the Templemore to Johnstown road. The Portumna to Birr road, between the bridge at Portumna and the bridge in Riverstown, is entirely in my constituency and needs major enhancement works, particularly from the pike back as far as the ferry near Portumna. Other examples are the Cloughjordan to Roscrea road; the Nenagh to Ballina road through Portroe and Newtown; the Nenagh to Carrigahorig road going between Puckaun, Coolbaun and Terryglass; the Nenagh to Dolla road to Tipperary town, particularly going through Curreeney; and the Thurles to Limerick road, in particular going through Ballycahill, Milestone, Rear Cross and Kilcommon. That is a lot of regional roads and I did not even cover all of them in one rural constituency. Tipperary County Council has a huge amount of work to do. It is doing its best but with inflation it can only do so much. I am getting a lot of complaints at the moment about the Thurles to Limerick road, particularly from Rear Cross towards Newport. We need further investment in our roads in Tipperary if we are going to bring the road surfaces and structures up to the standard that is needed. After the rainfall we have seen in recent weeks and months, they are now even more damaged. Sending a team out to fix potholes only does so much. We need to deal with the structure of the roads if we are going to have safer and better ones in north Tipperary. That is what our taxpayers deserve.

I will confine my comments today to the issue of road safety around schools and enabling children to access schools in a safer manner. I welcome, as part of that, the implementation of phase 2 of the national speed limit review, which proposes to reduce the speed limit in urban areas to a default of 30 km/h. It is not so clear, however, what is expected of local authorities in relation to schools on national routes, and we should give them greater clarity. The Minister of State will be very familiar with some of the routes I am going to discuss, such as the R336 and the N59. In the case of the N59, Scoil Baile Nua, Rosscahill national school, Leam national school and Derryglinna are all on a national route. We should provide direct guidance to Galway County Council and other local authorities that we expect the speed limit, at least periodically around the time of school operations, to be reduced to 30 km/h at those spots. Similarly, on the R336, at Scoil Náisiúnta na bhForbacha, Scoil Náisiúnta Sailearna and scoil An Tulach, we should also ensure that at those locations the county council will reduce the speed limit to 30 km/h. On a general point, across the country, while we welcome the work local authorities are doing specifically on urban areas, we should ask them to reduce the speed limit on those national regional routes to 30 km/h during school times at least. I also want to talk about the safe routes to school scheme. We all welcome the ambition and objective of that scheme to make it easier for children to walk, cycle or scoot to school. A level of frustration has developed around the completion of those projects. I was the principal of a school that was involved in the first tranche of the safe routes to school scheme and, as yet, the work has not been completed. One of the challenges is that money is being provided to the active travel team within the local authorities but they also have lots of other tasks to do such as maintaining bus shelters, cycle schemes and road-narrowing schemes. We should provide the local authorities with staff specific to the safe routes to school scheme. The investment deserves that.

I do not think we have a legislation problem in road safety. I believe we primarily have an implementation and enforcement problem. Our Vision Zero strategy is heading in the wrong direction. Road deaths in Ireland rose by 22% from 2019 to 2025, while the EU average fell by 12%. That is not progress. Behaviour on our roads is worsening, while the system meant to protect people has failed to keep pace with the reality - more people, more cars, new vehicle types and more pressure on infrastructure. There has been a loss of confidence in our road safety strategy and the Government must act now to restore it. We have to remember the families affected and listen to road safety groups like PARC and people like Susan Gray who are dedicated to road safety. Fourteen people have lost their lives already this year, including somebody today. I am thinking of that family. What are the concrete plans to prioritise road safety, reform the RSA and properly tackle enforcement? Awareness and education matter but they are not enough. From the past six months, I will give the Minister of State three examples of where I have seen a worrying lack of co-ordination between agencies and Departments. Take illegal licence plates. Despite assurances from the Department of Transport, the Garda already had enforcement powers. It took two years and repeated parliamentary questions before fixed charge notices were implemented for illegal licence plates. Then there is Garda access to the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, which records licence status, disqualifications and penalty points. It is the backbone of enforcement on the roadside. For months, I was told by the Department of Transport that gardaí had full roadside access via their mobility app, and had so for at least three years. The Garda then said access was partial, that a memorandum of understanding had only been signed and that a pilot was under way. Since December, all Garda members now have full NVDF access and I welcome that, but what was happening over the past three years? Even now, I do not have full confidence that gardaí and insurance companies have all the information they need from the NVDF. The courts system is not capturing driver numbers of people who are disqualified or assigned penalty points, so a process then has to be undertaken to match drivers to offences on the NVDF. I have a simple question that has not been answered yet. Fifteen hundred court-issued penalty points have not been matched to drivers but a report from the Department of Transport says they could have been. Has there been any follow-up to see if any of them were for drivers who could have breached the 12- or seven-penalty-point threshold for disqualification? These are fixable issues: co-ordination, implementation and enforcement.

I wish to join with every Member of the House in remembering and paying tribute to the 183 lives that were lost on Irish roads in 2025, the largest number of fatalities on our roads since 2014. Of course, my heart also goes out to those impacted by this afternoon's horrendous bus crash in Dublin city centre and to the family of the deceased and those injured. Every life lost on our roads is a family devastated, an empty chair at the dinner table and a heart broken beyond repair. Of immense concern to me and no doubt my colleagues in this Chamber is the fact that since the end of Covid-19, road deaths have been on the rise in Ireland. Last year, there was an average of 15 deaths per month on the roads in Ireland, an increase on the average of 14 deaths per month in 2024. Clearly we must do more in this Chamber to ensure the message gets through: slow down because speed kills. For families grieving the sudden loss of a loved one in a road traffic accident, it can only feel like a meaninglessly cruel and random event. Last year, over half of the fatalities occurred on high-speed roads, those with a speed limit of 80 km/h and above. Carlow County Council has led from the front in applying a reduced speed limit to the section of the N80 that runs through the county, in direct response to an uptick in recent incidents on that stretch of road. Likewise, Kilkenny County Council's road safety plan has set out a strategic vision for the remainder of the decade aimed at engaging with the relevant stakeholders to bring about a safe environment on our roads. Outside Glenmore in south Kilkenny, a 6 km stretch of the N25 is among the most lethal pieces of road in the country. You are five times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on this section of road than on any other road in Ireland. Similarly, the Waterford to Cahir scheme on the N24 is stalled between stages 2 and 3, awaiting the necessary backing before it can proceed. People in Kilkenny are crying out for this work to be progressed urgently and to curb the senseless and utterly preventable tragedies. The time for talk is over; now is the time to act. I urge the relevant Ministers to do everything in their power to ensure these life-saving projects across the N24 and N25 are progressed as quickly as possible. Road tragedies remind us that everything can change in an instant and we should adopt that attitude when it comes to safety on the road. Everything can change for the worse, but it can also change for the better. I commend the RSA on its dedication to Vision Zero and on the outreach and education work it does on an ongoing basis to increase awareness of our own responsibilties on the road.

Communities have suffered the scourge of scramblers for too long. The death of Grace Lynch, a 16-year-old girl from Finglas, demands urgent action. People are frustrated by what they see as the lack of a proper response by the Garda to this menace. Gardaí are frustrated too, and while they have had some successes in seizing scramblers, the recent tragedy in Finglas shows that much more needs to be done. The current legislation is failing to tackle the scourge of scramblers and is not enforced. I have raised these concerns both in the Dáil and at local policing forums. I have also tried to bring legislation before the Dáil as far back as 2012. I introduced a Private Members' Bill that addressed the nuisance and dangers caused by scramblers in public areas, housing estates, parks and greens. My Bill would have given the Garda powers to seize, remove and dispose of such vehicles. This Bill was voted down by the then Government. In 2017, the then Deputy Imelda Munster and I introduced another Bill that again would have given the Garda the power to seize and detain quad bikes and scramblers when they were being used unlawfully. Once again this was voted down by the Government. In 2020, Sinn Féin introduced another Bill on scramblers and addressed concerns raised by the Government with regard to such legislation. Again, this Bill would have given the Garda powers of seizure, but also included a call for the Garda to be given the necessary resources and training to chase and apprehend people using scramblers unlawfully. Unfortunately, the Government voted down that Bill as well. It has taken the death of a young girl in Finglas for the Government to finally act. In framing the proposed legislation, the Government should take note of best practice for dealing with this problem in other countries. Communities want to see scramblers being seized and they also want to see people prosecuted. In Britain, police forces have been using a DNA spray that tags riders and bikes. This spray is an invisible, uniquely coded dye that aids in the identification of an offender, allowing for future prosecution. Drones are used to track offenders and scramblers, thereby avoiding the dangers of high-speed chase. In Britain, police forces have also used specialised scramblers to pursue and apprehend riders. It is unacceptable that people on scramblers are able to cover their faces. Along with such measures, the Garda needs to work with schools and local authorities to educate young people and parents about the dangers and legal consequences of the illegal use of scramblers. The Government must take this opportunity to tackle this menace once and for all.

Hear, hear.

There is no doubt the roads in my constituency are in an atrocious condition. I would dearly welcome the Minister of State coming down to see some of them. I spend most of my time travelling, but during the weekend when I am in my constituency, I spend most of my time trying to go around potholes. It is not good enough. It is the height of danger. We have verges that are not cut and there are trees hanging over onto roadways. The other day, The Southern Star, our newspaper down there, ran a piece by Kieran O'Mahony on the front page about how people cannot pass their driving test because they cannot see the lines on the road. There are no lines on the road and all the signs are blocked because everything is overgrown. There is a complete lack of funding and a complete lack of understanding that Cork County Council has been underfunded not for a couple of years but for decades, and it cannot deliver when it does not have money. It is a very serious issue. I am on the transport committee and I raised this next issue the other day. Has the Minister of State met the car manufacturers? The biggest problem we have today is that there are computer screens inside cars. There is a bloody portable television up on the dashboard. People can no longer just put down the hand and turn on the radio or put on the heating. You did not have to look; now you have to work a computer. A lot of people give out to us if we use mobile phones, which we should not do, of course, but when you are driving, there is a computer screen at the front of every new car you can buy today. That is an appalling situation. There are many issues. Take passing bays. On the N71, the R586 and the R585, there is not one passing bay. I could be held behind a tractor for 25 or 30 minutes on the road by someone pulling stuff. I would appreciate a little bit more money. Maybe the Minister of State could take a visit down there some time and we can have a look at all these issues.

It has been a year now since we last had statements on road safety, and in the interim, we have multiple vehicle-related deaths. In 2025, there were 185 fatalities recorded by the RSA - that is up 8% - comprising 76 drivers, 41 pedestrians, 30 motorcyclists, 21 passengers, 14 cyclists and three e-scooter users. There have been too many tragic deaths in the first five weeks of this year as well. My thoughts go out to the families and individuals involved in the bus incident today. More details will come out in due course. The Government has to bear responsibility for all these deaths over the last number of years because the system is not functioning. Enforcement has weakened as Garda roads policing numbers have fallen and it will get worse. There is dangerous behaviour in cars – speeding, phone use, breaking lights, selfish behaviour, dangerous scramblers, e-scooters and illegal driving, unchecked far too often – and while safety measures have been announced, they have not been implemented yet or delivered quickly enough. These include the lower speed limits, stronger penalties and rules for the long-term learner drivers. Meanwhile, more families grieve. We need a zero-tolerance approach to breaking red lights, yellow-box misbehaviour, scooters with no visibility, scramblers and sulky racing on public roads. We probably also need a dedicated Garda traffic corps that goes beyond the internal Garda roads policing unit. We need higher fines, more seizures and zero tolerance at this stage.

I agree with speed limits but not all of them. Speed limits on our roads were brought down to 60 km/h on a blanket basis. I do not agree with that. Some roads are 6 m or 7 m wide on areas that are down to 60 km/h. Then there are roads ou could not park a car on, and they are also at 60 km/h. I would have loved them to leave speed limits with local authorities. They know where accidents happen or where there can be free-flowing traffic. Creating this blanket 60 km/h speed limit causes congestion where people could be driving at safer distances over a longer period. Another thing I do not agree with is people coming into this country being able to hold their licence for six months before they change it for an Irish licence. We have 1 million extra people in this country. The number of accidents is getting higher. I am not blaming all the people coming into this country but when people come from another country, their driving pattern is very different. I was in Rome recently. My God. I did not find one person on their phone but their driving behaviour was very different from the behaviour here. It was in and out, in and out. Not one person walked out in front of a car or truck saying, “Oh look at me, I am on my phone” because they have personal responsibility. Here, it has gone the other way around. There is no personal responsibility for a person walking or doing anything. You should be seen on the road. Everyone should have responsibility, whether they are driving a car, walking on the road or cycling. Everyone has personal responsibility but they should take into account the different widths of the road so that we have a reasonable speed limit on them rather than having a blanket limit and then not even paying local authorities for the repair of the roads.

The councils are underfunded. The Minister of State is from the same county as me and he knows this. Galway is probably one of the worst funded counties in general, but in roads especially. Another issue is roadside hedges. Anyone who drives a lorry will know that the first thing that will happen is the mirrors will be clipped. Two rows of hedges will have been cut and the third one will not have been. They have to keep hedges out of the road. That is causing more problems. We have to sympathise with anyone who has lost their life, but then we decided we would solve it all and reduce the speed limit. If you are going from Ahascragh to Ballinasloe, you would cycle faster on a road that is dead straight and then on a by-road you could go faster. It is absolutely nuts what we have done. Then there are the GoSafe vans, which of course are put in places where they are sure to catch you - if you are doing a lot of mileage generally, they are sure to get you – instead of being in places that are real black spots. The Government brought down the speed limits. What has happened? Unfortunately, more people have lost their lives. Another thing we have done is around older people and the computer system. People talk about learner permits and all that. Bring them with you; do not bring them away from you. We are now going to say you have to go back to square one. For older people who have had it for X number of years, we need to get them to do their test or sort out something. Some of these people are afraid at the moment to even go in to do the test to get a provisional licence when they have to go in and answer the 40 questions. We need to be considerate and work with people. Above all is safety on roads. The problem is those roads are in a bad state around the country and it is causing a lot of accidents. However, we blame everything else to make sure that we do not have to put more money into it.

Road safety is not being taken seriously by this Government; that is a fact. We have all the legislation but no enforcement. Legislation does not mean tuppenny damn if we do not enforce it. Let us consider the new legislation the Government's bought in yesterday for scramblers. I have spoken to representatives of the Garda. They say gardaí do not have the ability or the right to pursue an individual on a scrambler. The press statement put out yesterday said that there will be pursuit of individual scramblers. Gardaí are not trained to do it. One of the most dangerous things they can do is pursue somebody in a particular situation like this. There has been no discussion with the Garda representative organisations on this at all. The day after the Government announced the legislation on scramblers, we are in limbo as to whether or not anybody can be pursued for it. That is a really significant problem in. If a garda does pursue and someone dies, they could be brought before Fiosrú. They could be stood down. They could find themselves in a civil court defending the fact they pursued without any training. Those gardaí have the same licences the Minister of State has in terms of pursuit. The Minister of State will be embarrassed by the figures I am going to read out now. Figures show that between 2021 and 2024, 32,700 drivers were disqualified. Of those, a third did not even have a bloody licence, an incredible situation. Of the 21,000 who did have a licence, only 5,000 bothered to surrender them afterwards to the people they were meant to surrender them to. There were people disqualified in those years who had already been disqualified twice. They were driving and they were disqualified, they were driving again and were disqualified again, and they were driving yet again and were disqualified yet again. What difference does the bloody legislation mean at all if the Government will not put in place the number of gardaí that is necessary? Garda numbers have fallen significantly in the last number of years. There has been a 40% fall in the number of traffic gardaí and behaviours are changing as a result.

Can I confirm that Deputy Lahart and I are sharing ten minutes?

Yes.

I start by extending my sympathies to the family of Grace Lynch and also to the family of the deceased from today's bus accident and those recovering in hospital, as well as the 183 families from last year, nine of them in Mayo. It is important to remember those people because that is why we are here. Even though in my county there were 19 deaths in 2024, which reduced to nine last year, every single life lost is one too many. The RSA is to be commended on the good work that it is doing. Representatives from the RSA were in the audiovisual room yesterday and gave us a good presentation. We can all agree that lots more work needs to be done. One of the first things that could be done very easily is to update the traffic watch online. Right now, it is still a form that people can fill in, but with so many cars having live dashcams, it is a no-brainer that we should be able to upload that footage and be able to prosecute from that. That is something that should be done very quickly. I am looking at tackling car enthusiasts in an area in my home county called Derrinumera, where the local recycling centre is. Car enthusiasts gather there most Saturday nights with up to 100 cars at a time. Families are struggling to get their young children to sleep. More than that, doughnuts are being done and there is lots of dangerous driving. An holistic approach is needed to meet young people where they are at. There are a lot of car enthusiasts in Westport, Mayo in general, Donegal and Galway. We have to meet them where they are at in an holistic way by bringing them to the table and offering them organised ways to show off the cars they are so proud of in a safe manner. We also need to tackle distracted and dangerous driving in general. I would love to see more of the work that the RSA is doing with young people in transition year, at the AXA roadshow and going around to things like the ploughing championships where they are using virtual reality. We know from the Defence Forces and from nursing and medical courses that virtual reality is having a very positive effect on real-life behaviour. We should look at expanding virtual reality scenarios of driving on ice, driving when tired and falling asleep, having an accident while holding a phone, driving under the influence and perhaps make that as a mandatory one-hour finisher to the 11 hours already required by a learner driver. It is one thing to do it in schools, but it would be great to do it right before people take their test. Many Deputies have spoken today about the frustration with driving slowly and speed limits coming down to 30 km/h in some areas. We have to remind ourselves of the statistics. If hit by a vehicle at 60 km/h, 40% of people will survive. If hit at 50 km/h, 70% of people will survive. If hit at 30 km/h, more than 90% of people will survive. A driver who hits somebody at 60 km/h will wish for every second afterwards that they had only been driving at 30 km/h. People might be frustrated today getting to work doing 60 km/h on a 50 km/h road, but I guarantee that if a child happens to run out in front of them and they are within the speed limit, they will not regret this for the rest of their life. I also want to thank Hayley Coleman and Myles O'Brien, who came to speak at a road safety event I held in Mayo last year. It demonstrated to everybody there the benefit of hearing real-life stories. If this can be incorporated into the learner driver courses and people hear real life-changing stories, it will have real impact. Myles O'Brien is a talented chef. He has talked about the fact that he was a novice motorcyclist and had an accident that left him paralysed. He is graciously giving up his time to talk to people about his experiences and what he wished he knew then. Hayley Coleman is a talented make-up artist who was involved in an accident where her friend passed away and she was left with life-changing injuries. Whether it is at the AXA roadshow or wherever, if anybody gets to hear at first hand a life-changing experience, it will impact their driver behaviour; we know that. If that can be rolled out when people are doing their learner driver courses, it would be really beneficial. We definitely need more streamlined funding for lollipop people. In my home town of Westport, a school has been without a lollipop person for a long time. We know that is because it is a short-term role for a couple of hours a day but it is a vital role. We should definitely consider streamlining funding across local authorities for lollipop people.

Before I call on Deputy Lahart, I believe we have some members of the Order of Malta with us. I am not sure where they are from but what they do is very valued in society and I thank them very much.

As you have used 20 seconds of my time, a Cheann Comhairle, you might be nice to me at the back end of it. I echo your welcome. The Order of Malta would absolutely take priority if I was in the Chair too. I echo the comments made by all previous speakers and by the Taoiseach and the Minister in recent days. I offer my sympathy to the family of Grace Lynch on their unbearable loss. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems to the public that events like this coax Government and politicians into action. When I first came in here in 2016, we had the scourge of scramblers in my constituency of Dublin South-West not only on streets but particularly in public parks. They destroyed public parks and public pitches and caused accidents to young children, near accidents and near misses. There had been a death on the northside of Dublin as well, which motivated me as spokesperson on Dublin at the time to move to introduce legislation. We were not in government but when we came into government, Deputy Paul McAuliffe and I doubled down on that. It is worth reiterating what that legislation involved. It was passed in 2023 by the Government at the time. It made dangerous driving an offence not only in public spaces but everywhere, including in public parks. It also gave An Garda Síochána new powers to seize scramblers being driven dangerously in any location. One month after the Bill was enacted, off-road scramblers were no longer just illegal for use in public places. It was illegal to drive them dangerously anywhere, even on private land. More importantly, gardaí had full powers under that legislation to seize a scrambler being driven dangerously in any location where they had reasonable belief that the vehicle might be driven dangerously. It also gave the Garda the powers to enter the curtilage of a dwelling to receive a scrambler after the fact. Why was it given those powers? It was that senior gardaí had issued an instruction to rank-and-file members not to engage in pursuit of scramblers being driven in a dangerous fashion, as that would cause danger to the public, the garda and the person driving the scrambler. It was just dangerous all around. All of these powers we have spoken about were actually granted to the Garda. We have to ask ourselves why the regulations to ban scramblers in public spaces were not being made. That comes down to an elongated consultation process that was going on between officials at Garda level and in the Department of Transport. I am not going to say politicians did their bit on this but we certainly did our utmost in passing that law to give the powers to those who requested them to ensure that the scourge and antisocial menace of scramblers could be stopped once and for all. I welcome the complete ban. I am disappointed about certain initiatives. I tried to bring one to south Dublin. I refer to the Moyross initiative where gardaí have engaged with scrambler users, the Road Safety Authority, community workers and social partnership. Essentially, it is a pretty sophisticated Garda youth diversion scheme where scrambler riders are taught to respect the rules of the road, how to maintain a scrambler bike, the correct reflective clothing to wear, how to ride and drive safely and how to respect other users on the road. There has been a lot of success to that. I tried to replicate it in my own local authority and brought the Moyross people to meet and engage with South Dublin County Council. It never went farther than that and I am hugely disappointed that it did not happen. I welcome the ban because the destruction caused by scramblers to parks in my community, and the menace caused to people, particularly children and older people, continues. I want to say to the Minister of State that we still have to find a way to catch them. A scrambler that appears on the street when these laws and regulations come in still has to be pursued and the rider still has to be caught safely. This has been raised by previous speakers. I support the use of drone technology in this and the expertise that other police forces have garnered.

Thank you, Deputy.

The Ceann Comhairle took some moments of my time welcoming people. I can say that because she is gone. That power to destroy scramblers existed under previous laws because of a lack of insurance or a lack of tax. If we do succeed, and I hope we do, they will be replaced by something else. We have to prepare for that. This is not the end of the story. We need to remain really vigilant. I welcome the work the Minister of State and the Ministers for justice and Transport have done.

I want to start by saying that everybody who was involved in that tragic incident on North Earl Street this lunchtime is in my thoughts and prayers. I thank the first responders. They do not get enough thanks from us in this House for being there and assisting people at this tragic time. I also want to ask people to refrain from sharing images and videos on social media. I know somebody it happened to before and it is an absolutely horrible way to find out that a loved one was involved in a tragic incident. I ask people to refrain from doing that. As a father, I watched the heartbreaking reaction to the tragic death of 16-year-old Grace Lynch by a scrambler. Those of us who have represented communities that have been plagued by scramblers are not surprised. We have given the Government ample warning. In 2012, Teachta Dessie Ellis brought forward legislation to deal with scramblers in our communities. In recent times, Teachtaí Donnelly and Ellis and I again brought forward more legislation. Despite the efforts of some Government backbenchers, the Government did not put anything concrete in place. My area of Dublin Mid-West is just one of the neighbourhoods that has been terrorised by people on scramblers. They feel they can do what they want, when they want and how they want. It is not just scramblers that are causing problems in our communities. E-scooters are being driven recklessly and with impunity, often transporting drugs and cash for organised criminals. People coming off e-scooters are the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries presenting at the Mater hospital. The Government has said it will commit to looking at regulations for e-scooters and scramblers but they need to be comprehensive. We need to see what powers are going to be put in place for the Garda to be able to seize them. These are absolute weapons in the hands of wrong people. They are lethal weapons. We need to put everything in place that will take them off our streets. I want to talk about potholes. It is the first time I have brought them up in the Dáil. It is a big issue in Dublin Mid-West. I have lived in the area all my life and I have never seen the roads so bad. Driving through parts of Clondalkin and Lucan is like driving through an obstacle course trying to avoid potholes. The roads literally are in bits. Some people actually name the potholes in my community they are there that long. They get a temporary fix and then they reappear a couple of days later. You could drive down a road one day and if you drive down the same road the next day, a pothole could have magically appeared. I would invite the Minister of State for a drive around Dublin Mid-West but it would be a bumpy ride with the number of potholes we have. We drive on the left in Ireland but in Dublin Mid-West we drive on what is left. That is what someone said to me as that is how bad the roads are. It is getting even worse. Residents in my area pay their road tax like everybody else and the least they should have are safe roads.

I join Deputy Ward in offering condolences following the recent incident in Dublin. I would also like to stress to the public not to be sharing incidents like this online and to allow everyone to investigate it. I thank first responders, An Garda Síochána, the ambulance service and the Order of Malta from Fairview and Marino, who I have in with me today. I thank them for all they do, for how they help the communities and how they serve the communities in these situations. Regarding road safety, every conversation has to begin with the people who are no longer with us, and those who have been injured. We have heard Deputies across the House describing how people's lives can be changed within seconds. Parents and children and the recent tragic deaths are not just numbers, they are lives. My father was a traffic policeman for over 35 years. He was one of the hardest men to ever learn how to drive with but he made sure I was doing everything correctly. I would love the current driving test to be reviewed and made more accurate to current driving conditions with the three-point turn. I do not know if the Minister of State ever reversed around a corner but I had to do it for the test and I have not done it since. We still have delays in our driving test and people failing it. I will go back to the issue of safety. The issue is personal to everyone. As other Deputies have said, gardaí are often the first on the scene as are our emergency supporters. They see the worst of road incidents and accidents, the reality of how road danger looks and why enforcement matters. I welcome the clampdown on scramblers and congratulate Deputies on the work that has been done across this House on the issue. It is sad that it took this tragic death to happen. We needed to get it done and it is being done. We have to go through it and make sure it is implemented correctly. On implementation, I have heard other Members speaking about how the Garda must have tools, the legal backing and the confidence to act. Gardaí should not be second-guessing whether doing their job will result in criticism or penalty. I know the Department of Transport is examining that. They are not the problem; they are the solution. They work tirelessly for us to make the roads safer. We need safer streets. We speak about open drug dealing on e-scooters. It needs to be targeted. Giving gardaí the authority to act decisively will also recognise that these men and women are not just public servants, they are guardians and heroes. I look up to my dad to this day. For the first responders who are at these scenes, the things they go through stick with them and it is something for which they need to be recognised. They should not be punished for doing their jobs correctly. If we are serious about road safety, we also must look into issues such as potholes. In my constituency I could provide a list of about 200 of them. We need look at the speed with which other countries deal with potholes and everything that results in safer roads. Seapark Drive needs a speed test. There are over 80 children on the road, but the speed test has still not been done. At the heart of the issue is roads. I was speaking to residents on the way down here, currently the Clontarf Road is flooded, but there has not been a direct response. Sadly, there was still traffic going straight through it, and flooding damaging houses. Thankfully we got through to Dublin Bus and the buses have stopped. However, joined-up thinking is needed when it comes to these public services and road safety. We all read the recent article about the Clontarf Road and the traffic management plan that is going to be put in place. This is going to bring more cars together and put children at risk. Public representatives were not consulted. What is the point of holding a local election and a general election if there are State bodies that are going to do what they want on our roads without consulting someone who knows where there should be more security or more traffic management? This needs to be looked into. I spoke recently about this to the Minister for Transport and how the Clontarf Road, Oscar Traynor Road and north Dublin as a whole, one of the busiest routes in Dublin, the artery of Dublin, was locked up for 18 months or longer and now people are fearful that they are going to do it again. Of course they are fearful. It is the conjunction of the entire north Dublin. The communication needs to be there. To go back to road safety, there is built-up traffic. Recently, one of the lollipop men in one of the areas was saying that traffic on the road when it is built up, leaves a spot for children that drivers cannot see and the child comes out. Traffic needs to be managed in that sense, especially around schools. I do welcome the engagement the Minister of State has had with me on this and I appreciate what he has been doing in helping me raise that, especially in north Dublin. We need to act on this quickly. These are not just statistics; they are lives. I join with all the Deputies who back the Garda and back the people who are making this country better.

I would like to thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate. I would also like to join with all Deputies and offer my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Grace Lynch on their tragic loss. I am also aware of the incident in Dublin city centre earlier where there was a loss of life and a number of people injured. Our thoughts are with them. As other Deputies have said, I also want to acknowledge the tremendous work of the first responders. I concur with Deputies Mark Ward and Heneghan and I ask people not to share images of the incident online. I hope that people would pay heed to that request. I also want to acknowledge the members of the Order of Malta who are in the Gallery. We all know the tremendous work they do all around the country. I am delighted that they got the opportunity to visit Leinster House. We, in this Chamber, acknowledge the tremendous work they do and I thank them for coming in. I am sure that every Member has, in some way, been impacted by a fatality of our roads. Setting aside party politics, road safety is an area where we all want to see improvements, and most importantly, a reduction in the number of deaths on our roads. While we may not always agree on the exact policies for doing so, I thank Deputies again for their contributions. The Government and the Garda Commissioner take road safety very seriously. Successful road safety strategies requires us to consider several matters that taken together can allow us to save lives. These include technology, road design, driver behaviour and education, severity of penalties, speed limits and enforcement. Ongoing enforcement is a very important aspect of road safety strategy, be that by gardaí, mobile, static and average speed cameras or other technology being deployed. Investing in better, safer roads, continued enforcement of the law and increasing the allocation of gardaí to front-line duties will assist in significantly improving road safety. That is why all uniformed gardaí are directed to undertake 30 minutes of high-visibility roads policing on each tour of duty. This, along with increased Garda numbers, improved technology, additional speed cameras and enhanced data sharing is helping to ensure a multifaceted approach to road safety enforcement in Ireland. I assure the public that we are committed to supporting the implementation of Ireland's Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030. I want to increase public awareness and crack down on dangerous driving. As outlined by the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, earlier, the phase 2 action plan under the road safety strategy will run from 2025 to 2027. The actions in this plan have the potential to be transformative. Work is continuing on implementing this plan. I welcome the progress to date on implementation of the recommendations under the speed limit review, the tackling of multiple learner permits and the work under way to deliver on significant legislative priorities, such as a national vehicle driver file Bill and the next road traffic Bill. To be clear, across provisions and powers set out in the Road Traffic Act 1961, the Road Traffic Act 1994 and the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023, it is illegal to use an unregistered scrambler in a public place. It is illegal to use a scrambler dangerously in any location and An Garda Síochána has powers of seizure for a vehicle being driven dangerously or which lacks registration, insurance or motor tax or where the driver does not hold the relevant driving licence. In short, outside of appropriate use in appropriate off-road settings, scrambler use is already illegal and enforcement powers exist. As outlined by the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, the Government is now moving swiftly to introduce new regulations that will help to bring additional legal clarity to the existing position that scramblers are banned for use on the road in almost all cases. I fully support the introduction of these new measures. The regulations will explicitly prohibit the use of vehicles such as scramblers in any place where the public might be present, such as private car parks. The regulations will make the mere use of vehicles such as a scrambler in these proscribed locations an offence and significantly increase the charges that accrue each day after a scrambler has been seized, to reduce the number of seized vehicles that are released and end up back on our roads. An Garda Síochána has at its disposal significant enforcement powers and these powers are being used. Between 1 January and 30 January 2025, a total of 449 scramblers, quads, e-bikes and e-scooters were seized in the Dublin metropolitan area. This marks a steady rise in effective performance in this particular area of policing when compared with figures from the same period in previous years. There were 128 seizures in 2024; 67 in 2023; 63 in 2022; and 65 in 2021. These figures are indicative of the Dublin metropolitan region's robust and operationally active policing response to this issue. A new Garda spontaneous pursuits policy was introduced in 2024. This policy aims to provide direction to gardaí, who in the course of their duties, use pursuit tactics and pursuit management to reduce the risk associated with pursuits and stopping of subject vehicles. This applies to any vehicles, not just cars, motorcycles or scramblers. Gardaí must operate within the law and have to be mindful of the dangers to members of the public, themselves and the rider and the issues involved with a pursuit of this type, which could have fatal consequences. Interception poses significant risks, not only to the drivers and passengers of these vehicles but also to the members of the public and local gardaí in affected communities. These difficulties would remain irrespective of any legislative enhancements. In this regard, it should be noted that gardaí have other enforcement options open to them, including investigative expertise to locate and question suspected persons after the fact, which would pose less of a risk to public safety. In recent years, An Garda Síochána has been given significant new powers and tools to enable it to fully enforce road safety laws. Since November 2023, the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland, MIBI, has been providing insurance details to An Garda Síochána. Details for 3 million vehicles and 5 million drivers are provided daily to identify vehicles being driven without insurance. In addition, since May 2024, An Garda Síochána now conducts mandatory drug testing at scenes of serious collisions. The publication of the Crowe report highlighted that while most roads policing personnel are committed to their roles, further improvements will enhance enforcement activity on our roads. I welcome the ongoing commitment of the Garda Commissioner to deliver on the recommendations contained in the Crowe report. To that end, I welcome the fact that road safety and collision reduction is included in a strategic commitment up to 2028 under An Garda Síochána Strategic Plan 2026-2028. The plan includes a commitment by An Garda Síochána to strive to reduce the numbers of fatal and serious injury collisions on our roads through robust national education, local enforcement and proactive detection of lifesaver offences, which will increase by 10%. This will be supported by local performance monitoring and strategic collaboration with key partners to improve road safety. Progress towards achieving this service goal will be reported to and assessed by the Policing and Community Safety Authority. At the end of December 2025 in the latest data for the which figures are available, 647 gardaí were assigned to the roads policing units across the country. As gardaí recruitment continues and accelerates, more gardaí will become available to be deployed to priority areas. While significant numbers of gardaí are assigned to roads policing units, all front-line gardaí contribute to policing our roads. Around 65% of drug driving and drink driving checks are carried out by regular gardaí. Of course, it is not just about personnel numbers. Technology will continue to play an increasingly important role in enforcement. Increased numbers of gardaí and enhanced gardaí visibility will form an important pillar to help deliver the Department of justice's action in supporting the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030. Managing deployment of resources in a large organisation, such as An Garda Síochána with competing priorities that include roads policing, economic crime, drugs and organised crime, cybercrime and managing front-line policing, is a complex process. Roads policing is one of many competing priority areas. Numbers applied on roads policing remain consistently higher as a percentage with over double of the entire organisation compared with other priority areas. This has been a very useful exchange of ideas and thoughts today on this important issue. The road safety strategy combined with a robust enforcement strategy provides us with the basis to deliver better outcomes on our roads. Behind every statistic, there is a life, family, friends and a community. It is beholden on all of us to make better choices for safer roads and to protect ourselves, our loved ones and all others who use our roads, particularly vulnerable road users. I thank all Deputies for their contributions on this important issue.