Road safety chiefs to get huge funds injection for campaigns after 20% rise in deaths in 2023
The Road Safety Authority is to set about a major increase in safety campaigns, according to Road Safety Minister Jack Chambers.
A Government review is expected to sanction a big increase in cash for the Road Safety Authority (RSA) in next year’s budget.
The authority has already been authorised to spend an extra €5.6million which had been lying in reserves to ramp up campaigns and to review the driving test.
Mr Chambers was commenting against the backdrop of an increase of almost 20% in road deaths last year to 184.
This has led to a growing concern as to the efficiency of the current RSA campaigns, with Labour’s transport spokesman Duncan Smith warning the authority needs a ‘transfusion of purpose’.
Social Democrats transport spokeswoman Catherine Murphy also warned that the State agency needs to find a way to ‘communicate with the TikTok generation’.
Mr Chambers said there was a ‘very worrying trend in fatalities’.
He said: ‘An external review of the RSA has also been commissioned by the Department of Transport, which is expected to produce recommendations on the future funding model of the RSA in advance of Budget 2025.’
It is believed the review will cover the structures of the Agency in the expectation that it will engage in much wider campaigns.
He also rejected claims that requests by the RSA for €6million in extra funding last year had been turned down.
The RSA sought the funding in response to a call by the department last August for suggestions of ‘any emergency measures that might be put in place which could have an impact by year-end’ on the ‘very difficult trends we are seeing in terms of road fatalities’.
Mr Chambers said the RSA had been told instead to spend a large build-up of reserves that it held.
The minister said: ‘In response to a concerning rising trend in fatalities and following engagement with the RSA, in October 2023 the department conveyed sanction for the RSA to spend €5.6million in unanticipated additional cash reserves on increased public awareness campaigns and on reviewing the driver testing curriculum.
‘This has enabled the RSA to ramp up additional public communications and advertising on road safety over recent weeks and months. We are working across Government to strengthen enforcement, education and awareness campaigns.’
The opposition has raised concerns about the road death figures, with Labour’s Mr Smith saying the authority needs a return ‘to the energy displayed when the RSA had Gay Byrne, the most famous broadcaster in the State, as its public face and we had serious, sustained enforcement’.
Ms Murphy of the Social Democrats said there was a need for immediate action.
She said: ‘There is no point in responding to this at the end of the year. Any campaigns have to be continuous and they have to be imaginative.
‘It is especially important they occur on the platforms used by young people. RTÉ campaigns alone are not enough. Many young people do not take their news from RTÉ. We need to be targeting TikTok and other youth platforms. We need to be having conversations with people on the forums they use to talk to people.
‘We do also need to visibly increase resources and support for road traffic policing. Deterrents have to be seen,’ Ms Murphy added.
Opposition figures have raised concerns over the roads policing strategy after figures secured by Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín revealed that the number of gardaí deployed to roads policing has fallen by 36% – from 1,046 in 2009 to 659 last August.
The figures have fallen in 10 out of the past 14 years.
Mr Tóibín also claimed the fall in policing numbers had been accompanied by a ‘significant fall in the level of fixed charge notices for speeding in the State’.
He said responses by Justice Minister Helen McEntee to Dáil questions had revealed that ‘Fixed traffic notices for speeding have fallen by 27% since 2014 and it even continues into the first nine months of [2023].
‘This chimes with the fact that the number of gardaí policing our roads is now lower than at any stage than the last 14 years.
‘The number of gardaí policing our roads has fallen a colossal 36% since 2009,’ Mr Tóibín said.
‘These facts are particularly significant given the horrendous and heartbreaking rise in the number of deaths on our roads last year,’ he added.
184 people died on Ireland’s roads last year