Road Safety: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Mark Duffy (FG), Labour Panel The Minister of State is welcome to the House this evening. On a day when there has been significant investment in road infrastructure right across the country, it is very welcome that a large element of it is low-cost safety measures that can make all of our towns, villages and communities safer. The motivation behind this Private Members' motion on behalf of Fine Gael Senators is the crisis we see on Irish roads at the moment. As the Minister of State will be aware, there were 185 fatalities in 2025, 76 being drivers, 41 pedestrians, 30 motorcyclists, 21 passengers, 14 pedal cyclists and three e-scooter users. I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and we have had a series of sessions discussing and breaking down these very stark and sad statistics to try to air the different ideas and possibilities and hear from communities, advocates and various interest groups about how we can do more. The committee heard from motorcyclists last week and we will have representatives from the haulage associations in tomorrow to discuss road safety. From my point of view, in County Mayo we sadly have had many tragedies. I would like to focus initially on the introduction of fixed speed cameras. I called for them for a long time for specific roads in the county where there are numerous junctions and accident blackspots. Since their introduction they have led to a marked improvement and reduced fatalities on stretches of roadway on the N17 and the N4. I would welcome the Minister of State's consideration of expanding them, based on calls from local authorities and different communities where there are blackspots. If there is an issue of funding or resources either within the Department or local authorities, consideration should be given to a privatised approach that can help to roll out these fixed speed cameras in conjunction with the local authorities and with the support of local councillors in each community. That could have a very positive effect on road safety and could expedite the roll-out of fixed speed cameras without taking up much-needed resources of a local authority or the Department. We have seen great investment in public transport and that can also play a vital role in bringing people from roadways and more dangerous environments to safer modes of transport. As a regular commuter from Mayo to Dublin, I understand that in difficult driving conditions on congested and busy roads we see drivers are, anecdotally, much more distracted and have much lower attention levels. This is having a negative impact on driver habits. As I mentioned, the investment in and roll-out of substantial infrastructure on roadways can be part of the road safety solution. The roll-out of low-cost safety measures in towns and communities is very important. It is something we just spoke about today with colleagues and that we have raised regularly. There is a finite need in certain towns for safety measures, whether that is pedestrian crossings and speed tables that can, in urban environments, reduce speeding and make them more pedestrian-friendly and safe. This has a public health benefit but it also has significant safety benefits for vulnerable road users. I ask that consideration be given to a transformational investment in certain towns and villages where councillors have identified a multitude of interventions that could make a significant difference to road safety in their town or village. That could be done in a way that is identified through one piece of work and then realised through a second piece of work, rather than having the regular over and back between a local authority applying to a Department and it being either funded or declined and then waiting year after year for much-needed investment in infrastructure in communities. We also spoke recently about the Love 30 campaign. The work of local authorities is under way to reduce speed limits in urban centres and that can be profoundly positive in improving safety. Road safety is down to the autonomy of motorists but we need to do more in strengthening the regulations and their enforcement. The Love 30 campaign has led to significant improvements in road safety in countries right across Europe where it has been introduced. I raised an issue on the floor this afternoon about Culleens National School in my home town of Ballina and made the point that, for example, State investment in a national school is very welcome from a Department of education point of view but a joined-up approach and thinking in terms of ensuring a school is also safely accessible by walking and cycling infrastructure should be part of any future investments. In this instance, since the school opened, for the past year it has been campaigning and advocating for the basic intervention of a footpath and a reduced speed limit outside the school. These are basic requests and I do not think requests like this need to go to ministerial level in order to get basic interventions that could be done at local authority level. We have engineers. Can we have more devolved decision making for low-cost safety interventions at local authority level without centralising every single element of road investment, as it is currently? More devolved investment through local authorities would be much welcomed. I thank the Minister of State for his time and for his work on road safety. I know it is something he holds very dear and that he is working sincerely to improve outcomes and safety for all of our citizens - motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and every road user. This evening is a very good opportunity to discuss that and identify what we can do to help drastically reduce the fatalities on our roads to make our roads, footpaths and cycleways safer for all our citizens. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-17