Ciarán Ahern
Dublin South-West · Labour Party · Ireland
“What we are asking for today is simply that the Government lives up to the commitment made in the programme for Government to carry out a new, independent feasibility study for an extension of the MetroLink from where it is currently due to end in Charlemont, out to Dublin south west.”
“It examined quite a nonsensical route that finished abruptly in Knocklyon, and therefore it significantly underestimated the cost benefit of the project.”
“This all comes back to funding our schools. All too often, despite the much publicised overspend in the education budget, schools still have to fight tooth and nail to get the resources they need. I never predicted that so much of my time as a TD would be spent working with local schools on funding and resourcing issues.”
“As the capitation grant is not covering basic operating costs, many school boards feel that to avoid running deficits, which they will get into trouble for from their governing bodies, they have to find funds elsewhere.”
“As the Minister knows, parents are paying hand over fist for ancillary school costs, be it for school uniforms, laptops, school transport or the so-called voluntary contributions. We cannot say we have free education in this country if the whole architecture that enables proper participation is hugely expensive for parents.”
“Some parents are now having to pay hundreds of euro for devices if their children are to just fully participate in school. As this motion states, we are at risk of creating a digital divide and new inequalities in our education system unless we put further supports in place for low-income families. Kevin Shortall, principal of St.”
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“When I raised this with the Minister previously, he pointed to the Kimmage corridor as a solution. That corridor has planning permission but it will be a few years before it is in operation. In any case, the environmental impact assessment says the corridor will save around seven minutes on the inbound journey in the mornings and three minutes in the evenings. Without further intervention, none of us can really argue that this new route represents an improvement for my constituents. The new route also cuts off direct public transport links with Firhouse, Templeogue and Terenure villages. My constituents do not benefit from the high frequency element because that begins and ends in Kimmage.”
“I welcome the work under way putting in new bus lanes and other measures I mentioned but perhaps the cart was put before the horse in rolling out a lot of the new routes before the necessary infrastructure was in place. I see this most obviously with the new F1 route in my constituency, Dublin South-West. I have raised this with the Minister previously and with the NTA. The F1 replaced the 49 bus. It takes a slightly different route down residential roads with no priority bus lanes so it gets stuck in morning and evening traffic. The consequence is a journey into the city centre which previously might have taken 45 minutes during peak hours can now take around one hour and 15 minutes. That has a significant impact on commuters from Tallaght, Firhouse and Knocklyon who rely on the bus to get to work.”
“I believe it can be done but the slow roll-out and persistent delays undermine public confidence in the project and, indeed, my own confidence. The Department of Transport needs to put its money where its mouth is. MetroLink also urgently needs to be developed. I call again on the Government to honour its commitment in the programme for Government to conduct a new feasibility study on extending the MetroLink out to Dublin south west. In many ways, what BusConnects is trying to achieve is an underground model where people can connect to different lines but just above ground. That model crucially means that buses are given priority on our roads. We hear from the NTA and service operators all the time that congestion is the number one issue affecting reliability for buses.”
“It has not exactly been a smooth a smooth ride so far. The roll-out is delayed in places currently due to the Department of Transport holding back funding. The scattered roll-out of the various spines has not helped public buy-in. So many parts of the new network are still missing that what we have at present is just a patchwork of routes that do not always make sense on their own. These new routes are being commenced without the reallocation of road space needed for bus lanes, bus corridors and bus gates which means buses are getting stuck in ever more congestion, journey times are increasing for many people and the core concept of BusConnects, that you hop on and hop off buses in a timely manner to traverse the city, is just not working out yet in reality.”
“It is important we give people other options - cheaper, more sustainable and frankly more enjoyable, more efficient and more productive options to get around. The best way to protect people from the high cost of petrol and diesel is by reducing their dependence on private cars and making public transport a viable alternative for them. That is one reason we in the Labour Party proposed a free public transport pilot for the duration of the present fossil fuel crisis. Our public transport networks need massive upgrades and expansions to build on the good work of the previous Government. My colleagues, Deputies Sheehan, Nash and Eoghan Kenny, will touch on the particulars of their own areas. I hope when BusConnects networks are rolled out in other cities that lessons are learned from our experience in Dublin.”
“The Labour Party welcomes this Bill. A genuine success story of the previous Government was the expansion of public transport services outside of Dublin, the Local Link network in particular. It is important we build upon that progress. This Bill is largely technical but it is important in enabling us to do so. I acknowledge the progress being made but too many people are still forced to rely on their cars to get around because of inadequate public transport options in particular outside the capital. There is a real cost to that from a climate and emissions perspective but also as we have seen recently in terms of our dependence on fossil fuels, the financial impact of the skyrocketing petrol and diesel prices and the huge impact on people's quality of life that comes from sitting for hours every day on congested motorways.”
“We cannot be politically neutral in the face of Israel's genocide in Gaza or Russia's imperialist invasion of Ukraine. Ireland's political voice should continue to be one that speaks for peace, diplomacy and multilateralism. The reason we can do that, and do it sincerely, is our military neutrality. I commend Deputy Stanley on his motion. Neutrality is the only path forward and any attempt by the Government to undermine it will be met with the utmost opposition by the Labour Party and by all of us across the left.”
“Our investment in building up our defence capabilities should be focused first and foremost on our people. The failure to get on top of our low level of Defence Forces membership is having knock-on effects elsewhere. There is a recommended acceleration programme of naval vessel replacement, for example, to ensure a balanced fleet of nine modern ships by the early 2030s. However, the problem in the Naval Service is not that there are no vessels; it is that we have no one to staff them. Throwing money at more vessels will not work. The investment must be in our people. We in the Labour Party have always maintained that Ireland is a militarily neutral country, and proudly so, but we are not politically neutral. We cannot compromise on our values.”
“That shortfall is not surprising when we look at the pay and conditions on offer. For instance, cadets get €503 per week for their first year, compared with starting pay of €550 per week for recruits, who move to €814 after six months. Cadets earn 47% less than their enlisted counterparts in their first year. It is no wonder we have struggled with recruitment for so long. As my colleague Deputy Smith said in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago, it may be financially illogical to become a cadet in view of the long-term impact on pension entitlements. In addition, the supplementary pension scheme issue, which is a problem across our uniformed services, is playing into our difficulties with recruitment and retention. These issues need be addressed.”
“Irish people are realistic about what is possible but we do not want to feel we are defenceless and unable, for example, to monitor our territorial waters and respond to perceived threats. Those threats, to name but a few, might take the form of large-scale drug smuggling operations or potential interference by bad actors in our vital undersea cables or electricity and gas interconnectors. Our neutrality will become more and more fragile if we do not act on those threats. An over-reliance on our political allies for monitoring and protection leaves us vulnerable to being politically pressured into scenarios that legitimately threaten our neutrality. We need to take corrective actions in terms of our own defence capabilities. Our Defence Forces have nowhere near the levels of personnel they need, with fewer than 7,500 members at present.”
“I fear that our neutrality, and an assumption that if worst came to worst, the UK would come to our rescue, has led to a certain level of complacency in building up our own capacity to defend ourselves. We hope we will never have to do so but the reality is we exist in an increasingly unstable and unpredictable geopolitical arena. While we cannot and will not under any circumstances accept a role in a common defence pact or any offensive actions involving Irish troops, we have a responsibility to get our own house in order. The best insurance policy against any external threats to our neutrality is to ensure we have some reasonable defence capabilities. We cannot continue outsourcing our defence.”
“However, we also acknowledge that, politically speaking, when we debate our neutrality, the substance of the debate rarely moves past the triple lock. Its removal would erode our neutrality and risk damaging the unique voice we have in international affairs, whereby we have historically punched well above our weight. What often gets lost, however, is that neutrality is not the same as passivity in terms of the Defence Forces and our defence capabilities. We should not accept that there is a contradiction between our policy of neutrality and investing in our defence. On the contrary, our position of neutrality means it is incumbent on us to ensure we invest in defence. That is how we ensure our sovereignty when it comes to these matters. At present, we rely on the UK, a NATO member, for our air defences.”
“Assuming that Whips would operate as normal for Government parties and there would not be a free vote on such a resolution, the proposal would mean, in essence, that our Defence Forces could be deployed on the whim of whichever government is in power. No international assent would be required and there would be no further safeguards. It is a deeply concerning prospect and the Government should know that. Ministers can deny it all they want but it leaves the door open to our Defence Forces getting involved in NATO missions, an EU common defence arrangement or some other military composition that would, in effect, spell an end to our neutrality. On the Defence Forces and our defence capabilities more broadly, the Labour Party is a staunch defender of our military neutrality and the triple lock, and always will be.”
“Right now, international institutions, multilateral co-operation and international law are all under sustained attack and probably have never been more in need of advocates, at least since the Cold War. We should seek to strengthen the credibility of the UN, not weaken our commitment to it. If the Government believes the Security Council requires reform, that is fine; I largely agree. Let us advocate for that reform. What we must not do is retreat from the institution and potentially jeopardise our neutrality in the process. The Government's proposal is that deployments be authorised by the approval of the Government and the passing of a resolution of the Dáil.”
“The triple lock ensures not only that any overseas engagement is safeguarded against the whims of the Executive or geopolitical pressures, but that its grounded in international law, which itself brings legitimacy, respect and an additional level of confidence in the safety of our Defence Forces personnel who are being deployed. We do not need to look too far to see the disastrous effects of unilateral wars and illegal invasions that bypass international institutions and can start on a whim. This is all playing out in the Middle East right now with Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal attacks on Iran. The Government, in its argument for removing the triple lock, often points to the dysfunction of the UN Security Council and there is some truth to that argument. However, the answer is not just to abandon multilateralism.”
“The Labour Party has long-supported enshrining neutrality in our Constitution and published a proposed wording for an amendment to this effect as far back as 2002. Our neutrality is a large part of the reason our peacekeepers, of whom we are all immensely proud, are so well-respected and trusted in conflict zones. Members of our Defence Forces have served as peacekeepers with distinction the world over, protecting civilians, monitoring ceasefires, delivering aid and so on. Our reputation for peacekeeping has flourished because of our position as a neutral county. The removal of the triple lock risks undermining that reputation precisely because it risks undermining our neutrality. As the Taoiseach once said, in what I guess was a previous life, it is "the core of our neutrality".”
“Neutrality has been central to our foreign policy since the Second World War and it has been an active neutrality. It is an expression of our sovereignty, independent judgement and a belief that small nations such as ours can contribute to peace not through military alliances, but through diplomacy, humanitarianism, peacekeeping and international law. For decades, it has allowed us to carve out a respected position on the world stage precisely because we have refused to become an appendage to a large military power. Our neutrality has stood us in good stead. It is widely supported among the public who have consistently and repeatedly expressed their support for neutrality and continue to do so in every opinion poll on the matter. However, our neutrality is not secure. It does not have constitutional status.”
“We know that war is driving deforestation, agricultural decline, industrial pollution and the collapse of health and sanitation systems. We see the destruction of the basic facilities and systems that make human life possible, including water networks, sewage treatment plants, farmland, ports, fuel depots and electricity infrastructure, often leaving polluted air, contaminated soil and unsafe water long after the fighting ends. We see fires, oil spills, toxic debris, damaged sanitation, collapsing public health systems and ecosystems pushed beyond recovery. We all have a human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and the promotion of peace internationally, via our neutrality, should be at least one method for our State to pursue this vital right.”
“I thank Deputy Stanley for bringing this important motion forward. The Labour Party will support it and I would like to take the opportunity to restate our firm commitment to the principle of military neutrality, the retention of the triple lock and our country’s continued promotion of peace and an end to war. We know the immense human cost of war. We see it on our screens every day from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan. Aside from the profound human suffering, as our party’s environment spokesperson and this being National Biodiversity Week, it would be remiss of me not to mention the massive environmental, climate and ecological impacts of war that are not spoken about enough. Militaries contribute 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
“We all want to see a strong An Post, but it is important that I also recognise that it is not an entirely commercial body and that it does have a public service mandate as well. There is a lot of uncertainty around the area, whether it is staff or locals, about the future and we are getting a lot of our information second-hand. We would like to see the plan, to the extent that there is one. There are concerns about what we have heard, that collection points might be in local post offices from now on. They are located in SuperValu stores and so on, but they do not have the same opening hours as the sorting office would have. They would not be open before or after work. We would like an end to the uncertainty and to see the plan. We would like to meet with An Post, if the Minister of State can arrange that, please.”
“In practical terms, it would be asking people from Rathfarnham, essentially, and that area to travel across the already congested M50 to pick up parcels in Lucan rather than being able to do it locally. The staff and the local people are really concerned about it. We have heard rumours. We have not heard anything formally from An Post about this yet. The Minister of State has written to me about it and said that this is still a proposal but we would like to get some facts and we would like a meeting with An Post. That is what I am asking for today.”
“We are here today to register our strong disapproval of the proposed move of an An Post sorting office from Edmondstown to Lucan across the city. This is an issue of serious concern across parties. As the Minister of State can see, there are three Deputies here from the constituency but I know the two other Deputies will have similar feelings about this. This sorting office serves people in Dublin South-West as well as Dublin Rathdown and there are Deputies and councillors in both constituencies who have serious concerns about this. This sorting office has been a prized local asset for decades. It is an issue as it is a public service in the area. People locally see this as a degradation of services in our area.”
“That also means expanding native woodland cover, protecting marine biodiversity through stronger conservation measures and, crucially, recognising that climate action and biodiversity protection must go hand in hand. We have increasingly seen this framing from the Government that somehow environmental protections are barriers to progress. I cannot stress how much I disagree with that assertion. Nature restoration, clean water, healthy soils and resilient ecosystems are all economic policies. Biodiversity loss carries enormous financial costs through flooding, water treatment, agricultural decline, tourism impacts and public health pressures. Protecting nature is not anti-development; it is responsible development. If we are serious about building a resilient Ireland, then environmental law must be strengthened not weakened.”
“This type of multi-agency approach could be a template to use in other lakes on the island suffering from similar issues such as Lough Neagh. More importantly and more generally, if we believe in biodiversity protection, nature restoration and ecological health, they can no longer sit at the margins of public policy. They have to be central considerations. That means properly funding the NPWS, investing in river restoration and wetland recovery, strengthening the enforcement capacity within the EPA, supporting farmers through sustainable agriculture schemes that genuinely reward biodiversity protection and restoring peatlands not only as carbon sinks, but as living ecosystems.”
“Lady’s Island Lake has declined over the past 40 year, and because it has happened slowly, Governments and local authorities have not necessarily kept their eye on the ball. Because so many agencies and State bodies have had partial responsibility over the area, no one had taken overall responsibility for it until now That is perhaps the greatest danger of all - not active destruction, but complacency. That cannot be allowed to continue, but in fairness, I am pleased that Wexford County Council, alongside other relevant bodies, is taking responsibility and leading a strategic oversight group to ensure this vital habitat is restored urgently. The Oireachtas climate committee will work closely with the council to ensure this happens.”
“Every year, it supports migratory species and delicate ecological balances that have developed over centuries but like so many of our waterways, there has been a pattern of neglect for decades that is putting all of that at risk. Do not get me wrong; this is a really complex problem to solve. Nutrient enrichment, changing water conditions, agricultural run-off and climate impacts have all impacted on the ecological integrity of Lady's Island Lake. Conservationists and local communities have repeatedly raised concerns about the vulnerability of the site and the need for stronger protections. I commend the Save Lady’s Island Lake campaign and the EPA on their advocacy in this area. Lady’s Island Lake tells us something very important about biodiversity loss in Ireland; destruction rarely arrives dramatically. It happens gradually.”
“We need a just transition for farming communities that rewards environmental stewardship, supports family farms, protects water quality and ensures farmers can earn a decent living while restoring biodiversity because the current trajectory is failing both our natural environment and farmers alike. The consequences are becoming more and more apparent. My colleagues on the climate committee witnessed the situation in Lady's Island Lake in County Wexford, one of Ireland's most significant coastal lagoons. I had the pleasure of visiting it last Friday with the committee delegation. It is internationally important for birdlife and protected under European conservation law.”
“Warnings are ignored, water quality deteriorates further and political cowardice means nothing is done about it. The debate around nitrates has often become polarised but it really should not be. Farmers are not the enemy of biodiversity. Many farmers are among the strongest defenders of our landscapes and ecosystems. They understand the land better than anyone. The real failure lies in successive Governments that have forced farmers into a model of intensification without adequately supporting sustainable alternatives. We need a different path.”
“They support habitats, the tourism sector, farming, recreation and fisheries yet too many of our waterways are deteriorating before our eyes. The EPA has repeatedly warned about declining water quality in rivers and estuaries, particularly due to nutrient pollution associated with intensive agriculture and wastewater failures. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus are fuelling eutrophication, algal blooms and oxygen depletion in aquatic ecosystems. That is why the EU nitrates directive exists. It was introduced to protect waters from agricultural pollution and to improve water quality across Europe. lreland’s nitrates action programme is supposed to reduce the run-off of slurry and fertilisers into rivers and groundwater. However, year after year, we have seen the same pattern emerge.”
“I was really surprised and disappointed that the Social Democrats, in particular, supported the Government on this Bill. Only 15 Labour Party, Green Party and People Before Profit, PBP, TDs voted against it. It is easy to say we want to protect and promote our biodiversity but we also have to vote for it when we have the opportunity. I have not even touched on the question of whether Ministers being able to selectively decide when a law applies or not to their favourite projects is constitutional. This Bill will likely end up increasing the delays in our planning processes. Nowhere is the failure of Government policy in terms of biodiversity and the environment more visible than in the condition of lreland’s waterways. We are a water-rich country. Our rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters are central to our sense of self.”
“The Government has argued that these powers are necessary to accelerate projects of national importance but once a mechanism is created that allows Ministers to sidestep environmental scrutiny in the name of urgency, a precedent is established that can be expanded again and again. Today it might be one project; tomorrow it could be many. Let us be absolutely honest about the contradiction at the heart of this Government’s approach. On the one hand, Ministers speak passionately about climate action and restoring nature while, on the other, they pass legislation that weakens the enforceability of the very laws designed to protect our climate and ecosystems that are in crisis. One cannot claim to defend biodiversity while simultaneously hollowing out the legal protections that safeguard it.”
“As I pointed to last week, even if offshore wind projects make it through the planning process in the next couple of years, we are still way off actually building them because our ports are not ready for them, nor is our grid ready to take the energy being generated offshore. That has nothing to do with JRs or environmental or biodiversity concerns; it is an issue with the level of resources and expertise being made available to public bodies. The Government is simply looking for somewhere or someone to point the finger at for its own failings. Environmental safeguards are not bureaucratic obstacles. They are democratic protections for communities, ecosystems, and future generations.”
“The ability of Ministers to effectively decide when environmental and climate protections apply and when they do not undermines the very foundation of environmental law. Environmental and biodiversity protections cannot exist only when it is convenient. The Bill completely misdiagnoses the issue. The delays in getting critical infrastructure over the line are not because of judicial reviews, JRs, being taken on environmental grounds. They are because of the consistent under-resourcing of our public bodies, planning authorities and courts and a lack of strategic development across our national infrastructure.”
“If marine ecosystems collapse, coastal communities will be the ones paying the price. Yet, despite the scale of this emergency, the Government continues to treat biodiversity and our environment as secondary concerns. Just last week, the Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026 proceeded to the next Stage in this House. Ministers presented it as a practical measure to speed up infrastructure delivery. Nobody denies that we need to speed up delivery of infrastructure in this country. We have been held back for too long by our apparent inability to get important projects over the line in a timely and cost-effective way. However, the remedies contained in the Bill are not only misguided; they are deeply troubling in the context of the climate and biodiversity crises.”
“As per the NPWS and EPA, more than 85% of Ireland’s EU-protected habitats are now in "unfavourable condition". Nearly half of our native species are experiencing declines. Likewise, the EPA found that almost half of our waterways are in unhealthy conditions. We heard last week that our newest designated bathing area in Dún Laoghaire will be off-limits to swimmers this summer because of water pollution. Pollinators are disappearing from our countryside, peatlands continue to degrade and species that were once commonplace in Ireland are becoming rarer and rarer. These are not just abstract environmental concerns. There are tangible economic and industrial effects to this sort of degradation. Pollinators, for example, are vital in food production. When they decline, that sector suffers.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on the issue of biodiversity and to mark National Biodiversity Week today. This week should be not just a celebration of one of this country’s prized assets, including our natural environment, landscapes, coasts, wildlife and waterways, but also a call to action because while we market ourselves on the aesthetically rich, green environment that we have been blessed with, we do not do the best job of looking after it and nurturing it, at least at State level. Forty shades of green increasingly refers to the colour of the algae in our lakes. Often when we discuss the climate crisis in this House or elsewhere, we omit the fact that we have a corresponding and related biodiversity crisis. The evidence and the figures are pretty stark.”
“Many of the Taoiseach’s Government’s policies seem to be ignoring the fact that we are failing to meet our climate targets. We see ever-increasing fossil fuel use due to there being more data centres, more cars on our roads and more planes in our skies. We need to see the Government’s plan for how it is going to square this circle. If it is the Government's proposition that we can, basically, keep doing what we are doing and still cut our emissions as we are obliged to do, then let us see the homework. We keep asking for a climate action plan for this year. We are being told it is on the way. When will it be delivered?”
“I know the Taoiseach recently met with the SDLP leader, Claire Hanna, about reform of the Stormont institutions. It is something we in the Labour Party have long called for. The SDLP is calling on the UK and Irish Governments to engage in a short process of talks with parties to deliver change before the next Assembly elections. Will the Taoiseach confirm if he is considering that and if he will convene talks?”
“What will the Government do to improve capacity to provide clinical practice for healthcare students who are either studying outside the State or at private colleges here that do not have official links?”
“I want to highlight some difficulties that Irish healthcare students face in accessing clinical placements. A constituent of mine is studying physiotherapy in the Netherlands and needs to complete specific clinical practical placements in hospitals to register with CORU to practice as a physiotherapist in Ireland. She has been trying to line up a placement since February of last year but to no avail. Tallaght hospital has told me it has received 34 placement requests since January 2025 and so far it has only been able to accommodate five of these. In fairness, this is in addition to the placements it gives as a training hospital to Trinity College Dublin. At a time when we are trying to encourage people to join our health service it seems there is a lack of capacity in the training hospital system to cater for demand.”
“That is not to do with environmental law; that is to do with a lack of strategic planning and a lack of controls in our procurement processes. We know we are still four or five years away from any offshore wind infrastructure being built. That should be through planning in the next couple of years but the reason it is not going to be built is because our ports are not ready to construct the offshore wind platforms. This is not to do with planning or objections; it is to do with the resourcing and the expertise needed in our public bodies.”
“The monarchs' power to suspend or dispense with the operation of law in a way that favoured their favourites was actually outlawed by a bill of rights in 1689. Deputy O'Gorman talked about judicial reviews increasing as a result of this legislation. I think this legislation is potentially open to a constitutional challenge on the basis that we had Supreme Court cases before where Ministers have given themselves power to disapply laws for whoever they want and that has been struck down. I refer the Minister to the case of East Donegal Co-operative Livestock Mart Ltd. v. Attorney General from 1970. The issue at the heart of this is not in relation to the planning process; the issue is the allocation of resources to our public bodies. The national children's hospital has been delayed 17 or 18 times.”
“We are all agreed that there are delays and problems in delivering infrastructure in this country. The problem is that the Government and the Minister have come to the wrong conclusion about why this is a problem and why this is happening. He is determined to blame judicial reviews and environmental laws and to dump on environmentalists. These are people who are just trying to ensure that the law is upheld as it is and that decisions of our public bodies are made in the appropriate manner. The reason we want transparency and accountability and why we are pushing this amendment is that the Government is giving Ministers, essentially, the powers of monarchs. It is a power to essentially suspend or disapply a law for their favourites.”
“I echo Deputy O'Callaghan's concerns about this. We obviously want to see infrastructure delivered quickly in this country. Our biggest concern with the Bill in general is the disapplication of the climate action Acts. Given that is a power that will be given to the Minister, it is important that the Dáil and Seanad have a say in any project that is designated. Our amendment would essentially flip the burden. Rather than something being annulled requiring a resolution from the Dáil, we would say it will not take effect until a positive resolution is passed by both Houses.”
“This strategy proposes the potential creation of another major body in the road safety space without any meaningful explanation of how it will fit within the wider institutional landscape.”
“This is basically a rejection of the international evidence and best practice guidance that a well-resourced centralised authority is needed. It is further complicated by the strategy working group recommending, in the long term, the establishment of a new public body to achieve the full ambition of the strategy and take on the responsibility of both public bodies that will be responsible for cameras in the short term. I do not know how this reconciles with the Minister's row-back on the commitment to establish a new road safety authority to take over certain functions of the RSA. Is this a row-back on the row-back? What will it mean for the RSA into the future?”
“One of the more confusing aspects of this strategy is the extraordinary lack of clarity around governance and institutional reform. The document repeatedly refers to phases 1 and 2 implementation. Nowhere are those phases defined in terms of timelines. We have no clarity on when phase 1 will end and phase 2 will begin. We have no measurables, so we do not know what sort of milestones need to be achieved in phase 1 before we move to phase 2. To add to the confusion, the strategy splits responsibility for safety cameras across two public agencies, namely Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and an as-yet-unnamed agency, and the Garda, with these different bodies managing various elements of the system.”
“Many engineering and roads departments are operating under severe staffing pressures already. Councils are being asked to deliver active travel projects, housing infrastructure, flood mitigation, public realm improvements and road maintenance. That is all great, but it is all being done with finite resources. The strategy casually assigns additional responsibilities without explaining how these responsibilities will be supported. We are fully behind greater decentralisation, but what we are increasingly seeing is responsibility being decentralised while resources are not. Local authorities are essential partners in road safety delivery but council workers will be looking at this plan and thinking how the hell are they supposed to take on these new responsibilities if they are not getting any additional investment or staffing.”
“We need measurable targets and to monitor performance that we can say that the cameras are seeing success and changing driver behaviour, if speeding is down or if the number of people break red lights reduces. Unfortunately, we will not know that based on the model that is being outlined in this strategy. Under this strategy, a number of new roles are assigned to local authorities. The strategy states that local authorities will help identify sites, conduct feasibility assessments, liaising with landowners and support implementation, but where is the discussion of resources and funding? Presumably, these new responsibilities will require new staff, but there is no mention of that in the strategy. Local authorities across Ireland are already overstretched.”
“There are no concrete deployment targets, no annual benchmarks, no performance indicators and no measurable timelines for expansions. Basically, there are no means by which we can hold the Minister of State to account. Instead, we are given vague references to incremental progress and modelling exercises. The closest the strategy gets to setting a target for cameras is where it states "it could be feasible to aim to implement 10-20 new camera locations each year initially ... [while appreciating] that ... other European countries have considerably more cameras." That is about as weak an ambition as I can imagine. At that rate, comprehensive national coverage would take decades. Without clear key performance indicators, KPIs, the Government will always be able to claim the strategy is progressing regardless of outcomes.”