I thank Deputy Cowen for raising this important matter. The Government broadly supports the ambition of the nature restoration law, NRL, throughout its development and welcomes the vote to approve the regulation in the European Parliament earlier this week. Throughout the debate on these proposals, a key ambition for the Government has been to ensure that they achieve their key nature restoration objectives but allow farmers to continue to farm their land in a sustainable way. The current proposals differ in a numb…

I reiterate that while we support the ambition, we are fully committed to ensuring farmers will be key actors in the development and delivery of the wider nature restoration plan. The Deputy is correct that we need to have a partnership approach, with Government working with the farming community and the agricultural sector. If we look across Europe at how certain countries have managed this process, it leaves a lot to be desired. The European Commission and the wider European institutions need to make sure everyth…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." This Bill is an urgent and essential part of the Government's response to the concerning trend of rising road fatalities and serious injuries. This is a short and focused Bill that aims to effectively address issues with driver behaviours through legislative change. Last year, we witnessed 188 deaths on our roads. This essentially places us on the same footing for road safety as we were on ten years ago. We have witnessed a dramatic negative shift in driver behavio…

It is.

No.

I appreciate the contributions from across the House. Deputy Gould had some constructive suggestions. I will set out initially what we are doing in the Bill because a lot was stated around a lot of other reforms but it is important to set out the context again. We are reforming the penalty point system to target multiple offences in one act. It is a progressive reform. It targets those reckless drivers who commit multiple offences in the one act. This is something that will make a difference to road safety. Bringin…

I move: That the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Transport and Communications pursuant to Standing Orders 95 and 181.

I share the Deputy's sympathies with the families of the three people who were killed in Carlow overnight. Published in December 2021, the Government’s road safety strategy for 2021 to 2030 has the target of reducing road deaths and serious injuries by 50% this decade. It is underpinned by the Vision Zero policy. Vision Zero has been adopted across the EU and aims to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on our roads. The second annual review of the road safety strategy took place on 18 January, where a wide range …

What you failed to mention in your contribution was that the Road Safety Authority sought additional allocation for additional initiatives. It has significant reserves as an agency and it was then permitted to spend €5.6 million in additional campaigns to underpin additional initiatives. You did not give the full picture in your contribution. Also, you dismissed reducing speed limits when you said “speed limits and all of that”. It is not “all of that.” It is a core part of protecting vulnerable road users.

It has a significant evidence base. If Sinn Féin is going to play a populist line on speed limits, I ask you to get behind the actual evidence and support that initiative in the Oireachtas rather than trying to divide opinion. When it comes to the issue of enforcement, yes, it needs to improve and yes, the Garda does need to provide additional prioritisation of enforcement in the context of their overall numbers. We have significant recruitment happening this year and there should be a roads policing dividend from …

That is not true. There is a lot of work between local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland on investing in specific dangerous junctions. There is a work programme around that where there are improvements on certain roads. TII will set out further information on that. The legislation we are trying to advance has a core evidence base, addressing speed limits and anomalies around penalty points.

I take the wider concern from the Deputy, others and certainly the victims' organisations on the need to improve enforcement. That is something I raise at every meeting I have with An Garda Síochána and senior management in An Garda Síochána. We do need to see enforcement improve and we need to see the numbers in roads policing units improve. I am not dismissing that point. It is an absolute priority for me. If the reforms we are going to progress, along with existing legislation and policy, are going to have a fur…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Dublin Airport Authority has statutory responsibility for the management, operation and development of Dublin Airport. The cap of 32 million passengers per annum currently in place at the airport is a condition attached to the planning permission granted for terminal 2. The condition was put in place principally to limit the amount of traffic pressure on the access infrastructure, roads and public transport at Dublin Airport. The publication of the 2023 passenger figures …

As I stated in my previous response, they provided the methodology in how the passenger cap is calculated and its enumeration. The total number of passengers who passed through the terminals was 31.9 million. In excess of 1 million connecting passengers use the airport terminals and more than 500,000 included transit passengers did not leave the plane or were search-and-rescue and air ambulance passengers. The other important point is that the condition, which was put in place around this specific passenger cap, re…

The matters relating to enforcement of a planning decision are a matter for Fingal County Council, as the relevant planning authority. They will assess the methodology used in the enumeration of passengers. As I have said, if one reads the planning condition, it relates to pressure on infrastructure, roads and public transport. Dublin Airport and, indeed, the wider economic approach will require an increase in the passenger cap if we want to continue to be connected as an island and as a country and to continue to …

A key objective of the speed limit review is to align speed limits with the safe system approach to managing safety on the road network. The safe system approach is a means of managing and developing the road network so that, by design, it is forgiving of human error and mitigates serious collisions. In response to the upward trend in road deaths in recent years, we sought Government approval to publish the Road Traffic Bill in December, with the Bill subsequently published on 25 January and due to come before the …

Many of the HGVs and much of the logistics network use the motorway system and national primary roads, on which, as I said, the limits will remain as they are. They have a higher engineering standard compared with some of the other roads. It is important to have a lower baseline in highly urbanised areas, villages and towns where there are schools and vulnerable road users are at risk. We have seen that 43 pedestrians were killed last year, and speed, unfortunately, was a factor in many of those instances. We also …

There is guidance given to engineers on traffic-calming measures. We are all constituency TDs. I support many traffic-calming interventions in urbanised areas, particularly around schools and in villages and towns. In addition, where there is an inappropriate speed limit, it sets the context for motorists travelling through a village or town. That is why we have to set a lower default speed limit to slow traffic and protect vulnerable road users.

On the wider point I mentioned to others earlier, there is a need to improve enforcement and policing across the country. That is a key priority in our engagement with An Garda Síochána.

I support traffic-calming measures in towns and villages. It is a local authority function to implement traffic-calming measures in addition to changing the default speed limit in urbanised environments.