I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I too welcome everyone in the Public Gallery to listen to the statements today. I welcome the opportunity to address the House and to update Members on the recently published National Safety Camera Strategy, and on road safety matters more generally. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, will deliver the closing statement. As many Deputies will be aware, the last five years have seen an increase in road-related fatalities and serious injuries. Last year was a particularly dark year when, tragically, 188 people lost their lives on roads, the highest total in a decade. While we have made great strides since our first national road safety strategy began in 1998, that progress is now in the past and we must do more to restore the downward trend of fatalities and serious injuries on our roads. Each death and serious injury impacts not just on the victim but on their family, their friends and the wider community. The four main causes of fatalities on our roads have been consistent over time and remain: speeding, distraction, not wearing a seatbelt and intoxicated driving. All four come down to driver behaviour and personal responsibility on the part of road users. Tackling dangerous behaviours can be addressed through road safety education and public awareness campaigns, enforcement of road traffic laws, improved engineering of our road spaces and longer-term legislative reform. We are working on multiple fronts to address these problems. Let me be clear that this Government is committed to improving road safety and reducing fatalities and serious injuries. The current national framework for road safety is set out in the Government’s fifth Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, which was launched in December 2021. The strategy aligns with EU and UN targets and is based on the safe system approach, which is forgiving of individual human error. It aims to reduce road deaths and serious injuries by 50% this decade, and to achieving Vision Zero, which is as close as possible to zero fatalities or serious injuries on Irish roads, by 2050. The phase 2 action plan under the road safety strategy was published by my Department in July of last year for the period 2025 to 2027. This action plan comprises 12 primary transformative actions and 77 support actions. Delivering the action plan is a collaborative effort involving my Department and the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, together with An Garda Síochána, the Road Safety Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the National Transport Authority, the Courts Service, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, the Health and Safety Authority and local authorities. Deputies will note that there are many experts across a range of partners collaborating to take action and deliver positive road safety outcomes, and I assure the House that progress is being made. Key deliverables for this year include passing the national vehicle and driver file Bill 2025 to allow local authorities to resume accepting and processing collision data. The next road traffic Bill is also under development to advance programme for Government commitments around graduated speed limits, penalties and the camera enforcement of mobile phone and seatbelt offences. We are also addressing the long-standing issue relating to repeat renewal of learner permits, with regulations coming into effect this November. These are examples of actions well under way and progressing at pace. On 29 April I published the first national safety camera strategy, which provides a framework for increased deployment of cameras across the road network in urban and rural locations. The use of cameras has been proven to reduce speeding and improve driver behaviour, and I am confident that implementation of this strategy will help us achieve our road safety targets. The strategy is a culmination of an extensive programme of work which was delivered under the phase 1 of the action plan for 2021-2024. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, was tasked by my Department to develop a new safety camera strategy and TII served as chair and secretariat to an inter-agency working group that developed recommendations in this area. In addition to TII and my Department, the members of the working group include the Department of justice, An Garda Síochána, the National Transport Authority, the Courts Service, the Road Safety Authority and Dublin City Council. The work of this group built upon the findings and recommendations of the November 2023 report of the working group on camera-based enforcement of certain traffic offences. The group was not tasked with making proposals on the number of cameras to be deployed across the road network. Rather, in developing the strategy the working group focused on: mapping and understanding the current system, roles and responsibilities; analysing lessons learned from previous camera initiatives in Ireland; exploring best practice in other jurisdictions; assessing the optimal inter-agency partnerships for successful delivery; and formulating recommendations which were presented to the road safety leadership group. The working group identified and assessed potential options for delivering road camera systems and a draft report was submitted to my Department last year. Following this, my Department conducted a series of bilateral meetings over the subsequent period with stakeholders who would be tasked with implementing the strategy. The increased deployment of safety cameras in the coming years is a key action to be delivered under the phase 2 action plan. This priority action is being delivered collaboratively by road safety partners and aligns with commitments in the programme for Government. The national safety camera strategy focuses on speeding, red light running and bus lane infringements, with flexibility for the enforcement of other types of offence in future. Undoubtedly, speeding remains a serious safety concern on Irish roads. An RSA behavioural research study in 2025 showed that over 50% of drivers found it acceptable to exceed speed limits by up to 10 km/h and almost 30% of drivers found it acceptable to exceed the limit by more than 10 km/h. This behaviour leads to dangerous road traffic collisions, often resulting in fatalities and serious injuries. Cameras are proven to be an effective deterrent in changing behaviour. As outlined in the strategy, according to a meta-analysis, average-speed cameras significantly reduce the number of collisions, with the overall number estimated to fall by 30%, and fatal and serious injury collisions by 56%. A similar comparison with fixed cameras indicates that they have significantly reduced collisions by approximately 20%, and fatal and serious injury collisions by 15%. The National Safety Camera Strategy provides the required framework, with partnerships and responsibilities associated for the successful deployment of road safety cameras across the State. Effective delivery of a deployment programme will necessarily require collaboration by multiple State agencies ensuring appropriate use of skills and expertise. This includes An Garda Síochána, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and the National Transport Authority, NTA. This approach was developed by the inter-agency working group led by TIl and was agreed by the road safety leadership group, which I chair, and which is driving implementation of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030. Under this agreed approach, TIl will be responsible for the management of fixed and average speed cameras, in partnership with An Garda Síochána, which will continue to be responsible for the enforcement of camera-detected speed offences. The NTA will assume the primary responsibility - both management and enforcement functions - for urban traffic management offences. This approach builds on well-established road safety relationships, ensuring that we continue to see effective enforcement of road traffic laws, which is a key pillar of road safety. This strategy provides a clear framework to strengthen the use of safety cameras in a way that is targeted, evidence-led and proportionate. Ultimately, the challenge is to change road user behaviour. Improved detection and enforcement of road traffic offences will promote better and safer driver behaviour and help protect all road users. A delivery focused camera enforcement oversight group comprising key stakeholders is being established to implement the National Safety Camera Strategy. Membership of the group will include senior leaders from An Garda Síochána, the NTA, TIl, RSA, the Courts Service and the local authority sector. The detail of both TIl's and the NTA’s expanded roles will be developed with the assistance of the group and resourcing requirements will be considered for An Garda Síochána, TIl and the NTA in conjunction with parent Departments. The oversight group will: co-ordinate the activities of agencies involved in camera operation; collate, analyse and report on data on performance, for example, compliance and payment rates; keep the safety camera handbook up to date; undertake or task research to move forward the goals of the proposed new structure; and engage with my Department and the Department of justice on legislative, policy and funding matters. The group will agree its terms of reference and work plan to ensure successful implementation of the strategy. This includes agreeing at its first meeting an immediate set of short-term actions to start implementation. I expect the first meeting of this group to take place in the coming weeks. The group will report progress to the road safety leadership group. In addition, my Department will continue to work closely with all road safety stakeholders to ensure that the National Safety Camera Strategy is fully implemented. In developing the strategy, the inter-agency working group, chaired by TII, also developed a corresponding safety camera handbook. This sets out the process to be implemented when selecting locations for safety camera deployment and currently it sets out the process for the selection and prioritisation of speed cameras and red-light cameras. The handbook has been designed in such a way as to allow for additional chapters for other camera systems to be added in the future. It follows an evidence-based approach, so that cameras are located where they have the greatest potential for collision and casualty reduction. It should also be noted that individual agencies and offices remain responsible for their core functions, including deployment of cameras across the road network. This remains the case in the interim period before the strategy is fully implemented. With regard to current camera enforcement activity, I can assure the House that this has increased across the road network since late 2024. An Garda Síochána, with the assistance of TIl and local authorities has deployed nine new static safety cameras in nine counties across the road network. In addition, three new average-speed cameras have been deployed in Cavan, Mayo and Meath, bringing the total in use to five average-speed cameras in operation. Complementing these additional cameras, An Garda Síochána, through the mobile safety camera programme, delivered under contract by GoSafe, provides 9,000 hours of monitoring on our roads each month. This has increased from 7,500 hours in 2024. From 1 January An Garda Síochána introduced 390 new safety-camera zones, including 55 community request safety-camera zones, bringing the total to 1,901 safety camera zones nationwide. My focus as Minister of State and the focus of my Department and of all the road safety stakeholders we work with is on the delivery of phase 2 of the action plan. This was developed by experts, is based on Irish experience, and considers best practice in other countries. Our focus must be on the delivery of these agreed actions. In that regard, the publication of the National Safety Camera Strategy is another step towards delivering this work. The use of safety cameras has been proven to reduce speeding and improve driver behaviour. I am confident that safety cameras will be an effective deterrent to motorists speeding and will further enhance the enforcement capabilities of An Garda Síochána. The increased use of cameras can help us achieve our road safety targets, including working towards Vision Zero. I look forward to hearing from the Deputies on this important topic.

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