Public Accounts Committee: Road Safety Authority

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank the RSA for taking the time to attend. I am glad Mr.
Waide provided clarity as regards the RSA’s openness to attend the committee. The initial response may have struck the wrong tone and was probably ill judged. I am very glad to see the
RSA appear before the Committee of Public Accounts today.
I put the following questions against the backdrop of a fatality in Waterford overnight, of
which Mr. Waide will be aware. A teenager lost his life and another young man is fighting for
his life, perhaps two miles from my family home. We have a context where we have yet another
family grieving and yet another family praying for a good hospital outcome for their child. That
provides a sobering context for the questions I will put today.
This is an obvious question but there are questions that follow. Is there a correlation between total car journeys and total car collisions?
Mr. Sam Waide: On the headline reasons for collisions, there is an increasing risk. There is
an increase in cars in Ireland. There is an unprecedented increase in driving licences in Ireland.
That results in an increased risk of collisions.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: To cut through, increased car journeys correlates with increased car collisions.
Mr. Sam Waide: If I may, I will also say, in a positive way, that there is an increase in active travel.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am coming to that.
Mr. Sam Waide: That is an area that we as a society need to address.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is one in which the RSA has a particular role.
Mr. Sam Waide: Yes.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Action 41 of the action plan on road safety strategy is to encourage modal shift to support environmental, safety and health objectives by promoting the use of sustainable and active modes of travel. The lead on this is the Department of Transport but also the sport agency, NTA, Irish Rail, Bus Éireann and the RSA. How much money has the RSA assigned to campaigns that encourage modal shift?
Mr. Sam Waide: I will ask Ms O’Connor to give a sense of the campaigns. If we do not
have the information on how much that was in euro, we can certainly provide it.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: Under that action, the Department leads out on the Your Journey
Counts campaign. That is led by the Department and it is its funding. We have supported that
in a number of ways by sharing all of those assets.
We consider it important that a sub-message in many of our campaigns is about promoting
modal shift. That is how we have built it in to the new communications strategy. The Your
Journey Counts campaign, which is one of the principal pieces of that action, has been led by
the Department financially. That was in conjunction with us but also in terms of discussion to
make sure that our piece is the solid road safety piece and that the modal shift piece is led by
the Department so that there is no confusion between the two.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The witnesses will know where I am going with this in that
they know I have an opinion on where we place the blame for collisions that involve particularly vulnerable road users. Even though we have gone backwards in the past couple of years,
since 2006 we have made improvements with regard to the number of deaths on the roads. We
have not seen improvements with pedestrians, however. There has been no improvement at all
for pedestrians. Excuse me, there is a reduction in pedestrians. It is with cyclists that there is no
change at all. Our progress is not uniform. We are not doing as well on vulnerable road users.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: Deputy—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I want to return to something my colleague, Deputy Steven
Matthews, put to the witnesses at a transport committee meeting about submissions on road
safety interventions. At that meeting, it was stated that the RSA had not made any submissions,
either on section 38 or Part 8 planning matters. Why?
Mr. Sam Waide: When the RSA is asked to put forward a view on any policy or consultation, we will submit our road safety view.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: That does not really wash in that these are public consultations. I could point Mr. Waide to many schemes with regard to the weight of the authority of the
RSA if the RSA had come in. I believe Ms O’Connor stated in subsequent interviews that they
did not want to make submissions on road safety interventions because the RSA did not want to
be political. This astounds me. It could be a school street, a cycle lane, a permeability measure
or whatever. Let us say it is a school street. If there was a submission made from the RSA that
said – it need not necessarily be this specific school street in this specific context – international
research shows us that school streets result in better health outcomes for children, that would be
significant in the context of the decision being made, either on a Part 8 or a section 38, if that has been discussed in front of a council. However, the RSA has not made any such submissions
on any of these. Is that correct?
Mr. Sam Waide: I accept that RSA has, in the past, made submissions to consultations and
I accept—–

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has RSA made submissions on section 38 or Part 8 consultations?
Mr. Sam Waide: I will ask my colleague, Mr. Rowland, because he knows previous and
current submissions we have made in respect of different consultations. More importantly, we
share the international research with other agencies around the partnership board, NTA, TII—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: We are talking around the point here. Is it correct that the
RSA has not made submissions on Part 8s or section 38s?
Mr. Michael Rowland: We have made submissions. With regard to the previous committee meeting and Part 8, sometimes the correspondence that comes to us does not identify that is
a Part 8. Whenever we are asked to make a submission, we make a submission.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What expertise is there within the RSA to make that submission? Are transport engineers on staff? When a submission is made, who makes that submission and what—–
Mr. Michael Rowland: The point I made when this question was asked previously was that
we are not road safety engineers. We do not have road safety engineers.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: You are the Road Safety Authority.
Mr. Michael Rowland: Yes but—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Is Mr. Rowland telling me that the Road Safety Authority
does not have any road safety engineers on staff?
Mr. Michael Rowland: Yes, I am. Our role is education and awareness.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: No, it is not. It goes far beyond that. In fact, the Road
Safety Authority Act 2006 refers to, “the promotion of public awareness of road safety and of
measures, including the advancement of education, relating to the promotion of the safe use of
roads, including co-operation with local authorities and other persons in this regard”. Its remit
should include that. I am gobsmacked that the RSA does not have a road safety engineer on
staff.
I have a short time and I have many questions, some of which hopefully I will get to on a
second round. I wish to return to this idea of where we place blame. In 2022, 394,350 hi-vis
materials were distributed. What was the cost for that? What was the cost for close to 400,000
hi-vis pieces?

Ms Kim Colhoun: It cost €755,000.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What is the cost-benefit analysis the RSA runs on that?
Ms Kim Colhoun: I will pass to Ms O’Connor.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: Regarding hi-vis materials, we purchase materials for a number of
different road user groups – motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians, adults and children.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I understand.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: The procurement that surrounds that is all done under specialist
procurement agreements. From a value-for-money point of view, it is absolutely guaranteed.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Value for money and a cost-benefit analysis are two different things. I understand that hi-vis materials are relatively cheap. Some €750,000 is not a great
deal of money. Hi-vis is relatively cheap. We can go down the road and buy it in any shop.
We can pick up a hi-vis vest. I am asking about the cost-benefit analysis. A lot of work goes
work into putting hi-vis vests very often on young children, down to toddlers. What is the costbenefit analysis in terms of what road safety outcomes are delivered by putting hi-vis material
on the back of a four-year-old?
Ms Sarah O’Connor: We are led by research in this regard. I have referenced some of the
research before when speaking about this is. For example, when it comes to the ETSC, its indications are that if somebody is not wearing a high-visibility vest, either a pedestrian or cyclist,
they can be seen at 30 m. With high visibility, they can be seen at 150 m.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: During the night or during low-light conditions.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: Yes, absolutely.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: How many four-year-olds are out walking at night-time?
Ms Sarah O’Connor: There is a challenge here. I see crèches and schools all the time
having their kids out together collectively in hi-vis materials. Schools and crèches do that to
protect themselves and feel like they are doing everything right in that space. However, that is
not our advice. Our advice is about low-light conditions and night-time.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I think that is victim-blaming, to be quite honest, because
of where responsibility is placed. I believe the going to school booklet is still live on the RSA
website.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: It is.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It begins with dodgy research. It states that research shows
that children aged under 12 should not cross roads on their own. In fact, the research points to
those under ten years old. It has conflated—–
Ms Sarah O’Connor: Actually we just had a PhD presentation—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have the FOI that—–
Ms Sarah O’Connor: We can provide the Deputy with the PhD presentation we had in
recent weeks.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have the FOI on the research it was based on and it was
ten-year-olds.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: We actually followed up on it yesterday with further research.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The second point it states is that children should wear highvisibility clothing when out walking. That firmly and squarely places the blame on parents and
young children. We should be engineering our roads so it is safe for our children to walk to
school.
Ms Sarah O’Connor: We should be doing all of those things. High-visibility material can
play a role and can be very important. For young children—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Taking into account that it is quite cheap to do, what cost-benefit analysis is done on the hi-vis expenditure? It has an impact on where blame is apportioned for road collisions. Is there an underpinning cost-benefit analysis?
An Cathaoirleach: Please come in briefly. I want to move on.
Mr. Sam Waide: I absolutely agree with the final point the Deputy made. As a system and
as a country, we need to re-engineer our roads. I absolutely agree on that final point he made.
Our departmental colleagues are with us. I agree with that point.

Second Round of Questioning

An Cathaoirleach: Yes, but as Deputy Murphy said, many councillors will be told that
speed limits are to be increased by this amount. It is important that councillors are made aware
that this is their job.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: On that topic, I would be less worried about councillors
varying the speed limit down and more worried about them varying it up. I suspect that will be
the more problematic issue.
The basic metric in front of us is fatalities on the roads. That is a very important metric and
one that we want to drive down. We have seen the number of fatalities decrease from 365 in
2006 to 181 last year, so there have been some losses and gains. What about collisions? I do
not have a sense of the number of collisions on the roads. Is the reduction in fatalities due to
a reduction in the number of collisions or an improvement in care safety over time? Has there
been a reduction in collisions commensurate with the reduction in the number of fatalities or
does better car safety mask a lack of progress?
Mr. Michael Rowland: I think it is both. There has been a reduction. In the better years,
such as 2018 and 2021, when we had a reduction in the number of deaths on our roads, there
was a reduction in the number of collisions. However, I believe the survivors, the people who
have been seriously injured, are probably protected by the advances that have been made in
vehicle safety.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I ask Mr. Rowland to furnish the committee with some details.
Mr. Michael Rowland: I will, yes.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The RSA’s briefing note is very good and detailed but I could
not see that information anywhere.
Mr. Michael Rowland: I will get back to the Deputy in relation to the number of collisions.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I want to talk about how accidents are reported. For example, if a middle-aged cyclist is knocked down on a road the report will state what the cyclist

was doing, and the age and gender of the cyclist. The report would not tell me that the car was
making a right-hand turn manoeuvre, passing through a bike lane or passing through a gap of
stationary cars. It would not tell me anything about the bumper height of the car. In these reports we learn a lot about the victim and less about the other aspects involved, particularly in
the asymmetric situation where it is a collision with a vulnerable road user.
The child casualty report by the RSA, published in October 2023, gives me a report on the
gender, age and movement of the child but does not tell me other details such as the engine
size of the car, the type of car or the driver’s manoeuvre. The real problem with that is that we
learn a lot about the victim and far less about the driver’s manoeuvre, type of car, height of the
bumper, engine size, etc. Are there plans to change the method of reporting?
Mr. Sam Waide: The Deputy has asked a very relevant question. All of the data fields collected by members of An Garda Síochána at the collision scene are being extensively reviewed
as part of the data group.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Will the RSA have a proactive input?
Mr. Sam Waide: Yes

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has the RSA asked for more information on that?
Mr. Sam Waide: The RSA chairs the multi-agency and multi-Department group. I will
hand over to my colleague, Ms Kelly, who can provide insight into all of those variables of
which there is a high number. We can provide it.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have an eye on the clock so I ask Ms Kelly to concentrate
on the metrics the RSA is trying to include on, say, the driver’s side in respect of an asymmetric
collision involving a vulnerable road user.
Ms Nessa Kelly: As Mr. Waide said, we have been working with the Garda to review the
161 data fields that are part of the road traffic collision data set. From that, there is lots of information where a vehicle was involved, in terms of what the vehicle was doing at the time. We
receive those fields. We have agreed, through the review, from a data protection perspective
what fields we can still receive. Those critical fields continue to be received by the Road Safety
Authority. They then feed into our research teams. I ask Mr. Rowland to comment as it is his
team that completes the analysis used to inform the research and outcome.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Perhaps the RSA can furnish us with a note. I do not mean to
be rude but I only have one minute and 40 seconds to raise a couple of other issues. I am very
interested in finding out what data fields are reported, what are the GDPR issues and how we
can anonymise that information to better understand, particularly with an asymmetric collision,
the movements of the person driving the two tonnes of steel.
Ms Nessa Kelly: Yes, Deputy.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I want to return to the sharing of collision data. The issue
arose in 2020. Did Mr. Walsh say a ministerial order was signed last week?
Mr. Brendan Walsh: Yes.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is amazing the things that happen the week before a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts.

Mr. Brendan Walsh: There was a long process involved.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am sure there was. The coincidence always astounds me.
The interim period lasted four years. When did the RSA bring this issue to the attention of the
Department?
In respect of the legal process, we are talking about ministerial orders but there is a need for
legislation. We have had several Bills brought through the Department of Transport, including
a miscellaneous provisions Bill. This sounds exactly like a miscellaneous provision. At what
stage did the RSA engage with the Department to discuss this issue? I ask because it feels like
things started to move very quickly after the airing of a “Prime Time Investigates” programme.
Mr. Sam Waide: On the collision data, the RSA first raised this matter with other agencies
around the table in 2020. Again, I will pass over to Ms Kelly to confirm the key steps from then
until now. It has been a complex and lengthy process and it has been frustrating in terms of the
length of time it has taken.

Ms Nessa Kelly: This has been a top priority for the RSA since we identified the issues
around data protection with the collision data set. Once the matter came to light, we engaged
straightaway with our legal advisers and the Department to identify our route to regularise and
put the legal basis in place to be able to receive the data, first and foremost, because we receive
it from the Garda, and then to be able to share it onwards with organisations like the local authorities, the NTA, etc. In 2020, we immediately set about that activity of identifying our route
forward. We did not just say we need to hold back and wait until we see how we put the legal
requirement in place. We also engaged with the Department’s roads management support office
and our colleagues in the local authorities to say this is critical data that they need to receive in
order to be able to make evidence-based decisions on investment in road safety. We actually
agreed eight critical data fields from within the data set that we would continue to share with
the Department and local authorities, through the LGMA, in the intervening period while we
put the legal basis in place. From 2020, to establish that basis, we engaged with the Garda and
all stakeholders. We completed a thorough review of each of those 161 data fields. We looked
at the proportionality of the data being shared because some of it was special category and personal data, and we then looked to see what legal basis we could establish. We engaged with—–

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: With the indulgence of the Chair, I would like to ask a final
question. Members would be interested in seeing a timeline for the interactions around moving
from establishing the problem to resolving it.
In respect of serious collision data, we had relied on the Garda Síochána and now, because
of recommendations made by the European Commission, we are starting to take the serious
injury data from hospitals, which I assume leads to a greater number of serious casualties being
reported. How has that move impacted the €1.3 billion figure that was given for, I think, 2022?
Have we underestimated the cost of serious collisions because of the change in methodology?
Mr. Michael Rowland: We have two data sets on injuries. We are aware that serious injury reporting is understated, especially when we look at the Garda data. There are very good
reasons for that. With the approval of the Department, we engaged with the Department of
Health, the HSE and Trinity College Dublin to look at hospital inpatient inquiry data, which
contemplates serious injuries in particular and medical diagnoses of serious injuries, in order
that we could report on that. This tells us that many more serious injuries are happening than
are actually reported using Garda—–

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Will Mr. Rowland put a percentage figure on that in terms
of the difference in reporting using An Garda Síochána’s figures and hospital figures? Are we
talking about 20% or 50%?
Mr. Michael Rowland: Approaching twice as many serious injuries are occurring.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: So the figure of €1.39 billion could be a serious underestimate.
Mr. Michael Rowland: Yes, I would imagine it is because the serious injuries are based on
Garda data. It is only in recent times that we have been able to get access to—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It could as much as twice as many.
Mr. Michael Rowland: Yes, it could be a lot more.