A local TD has said that the establishment of an independent road safety commissioner with legislative powers could help make our roads safer.
Galway East TD Ciaran Cannon said one single body needs to assume responsibility for an overarching road safety strategy given the worrying trend of increasing road fatalities on our roads.
Deputy Cannon, who recently raised the matter in the Dáil, said that in three out of the last four years, we have experienced an increase in road-related fatalities and serious accidents.
“According to recent figures from the Road Safety Authority, 155 people have lost their lives on our roads this year and in the past seven years, 1,600 cyclists have been seriously injured,” said the Fine Gael TD.
“In performing his role, the Minister of State with responsibility for road transport currently engages with the Road Safety Authority, An Garda SÃochána, two Departments, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, local authorities and other different bodies, all of which have road safety functions within their remit.”
He said that what is needed is one individual or office with the legislative power and resources to pull all of these functions together to make our roads safer for each and every individual who uses them.
“The proposed Commissioner should have absolute independence and have powers underpinned by legislation to gather data across a number of sources so that we know exactly why people are losing their lives on our roads every day.
“They need powers to question the performance of the GardaÃ, elected office holders and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, with regard to our responsibility to ensure our roads are safe places to be.
“It needs to be able to research, carry out analysis of road safety programmes in other jurisdictions – road safety initiatives that work – and have the powers to have those initiatives introduced here with the minimum of delay.”
