Road Safety: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Niall Blaney (FF), Agricultural Panel I very much welcome the Minister of State, particularly in view of the announcements relating to roads funding that have come our way. It was good to see those announcements being made. I very much welcome the debate on this matter being brought to the floor of the House by my Fine Gael colleagues. I very much support, as do my Fianna Fáil colleagues, every aspect of the motion. There are a number of ways of looking at road safety and how to counter all the difficulties we have with road deaths. I disagree with Senator Joe Conway and his ideas in this regard. I acknowledge, however, that nobody has all the answers. In the past year or two, there was been more traffic on the roads than ever before. A big part of the reason for that is the fact that we have full employment. More people are working, more people are on the move and more people are car owners. The answer is not always to increase the number of penalty points or take measures against drivers. The reality is that when there are more cars on the roads. it takes longer to get places. For example, it is more difficult for family members to get to work and to get their children to school and transport them from A to B in the evenings to participate in various activities. The reality is that people have to spend more time in their cars. That is something the Government and the Minister of State have to take into consideration. One of the best means of alleviating the volume of traffic on the roads would be by means of the delivery of more rail services. I call on the Minister of State and the Government to roll out expenditure in respect of the all-island rail programme on a timed basis. That would have a greater impact in reducing the number of road deaths than taking more cars off the roads because it would give workers an alternative. That is not say that other alternatives are not needed when it comes to our roads. Road safety is a key priority for Fianna Fáil. Our approach is about saving lives and preventing serious injuries for all road users. The starting point lies in recognising that road deaths and injuries should not be the price to pay for mobility. The current road safety strategy aims to achieve a 50% reduction in the number of serious injuries and fatalities on roads by 2030 and reach vision zero, which means zero deaths and injuries, on our roads by 2050. Following the tragic death that was alluded to earlier, namely the untimely death of Grace Lynch on 25 January - the Minister met Grace's family very recently - our focus is rightly on scramblers. We owe it to Grace, her family and her friends to introduce regulations to further restrict the inappropriate use of scramblers in public places as a matter of urgency. An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has made it clear that there is no need for scramblers on public roads and that they should not be on public roads. Regulations are being prepared to explicitly prohibit the use of scramblers in any place where the public might be present and to make the mere use of scramblers in these prescribed locations an offence. These regulations will be made as a matter of urgency. The process is expected to conclude in a matter of weeks. As an immediate measure, it is proposed to amend regulations to increase the fees that accrue in respect of a seized vehicle each day in order to reduce the number of scramblers ending up back on the roads. We call on all scrambler users to obey the laws that are designed to ensure the safety of everyone. We ask family members to speak with those in their lives who might ride scramblers illegally and talk sense to them. There are a number of other things that we could do. E-scooters and scooters generally have very much become a factor in our lives, particularly in towns. We need to introduce a range of regulations and measures with regard to the use of scooters. Surgeons have highlighted that scooters are one of the biggest causes of brain injury. We need to take a serious look at that in terms of the current Act. As the Senator from Mayo, Senator Mark Duffy, just said, we should have more devolved funding to local authorities. I agree with Senator Duffy on that. Ireland currently has much more centralised funding per capita than any other member state in the EU. This is a great opportunity to give extra funds to local authorities. They know where the accident black spots are. Councillors are well aware of where they are. They prioritise them month in and month out, raising motions and asking questions. Small moneys can go a long way to reduce the number of accidents and deaths. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and I commend it to the House. --- 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