My thoughts are with all those impacted by the crash in Dublin today and the family of Grace Lynch. The year 2025 was the worst year for road fatalities in over ten years and represented a growing trend of Irish roads becoming less safe. Last year, An Garda Síochána recorded 190 people dying on our roads and over 1,000 people being injured as a result of collisions. Each statistic represents a life lost, a wider family devastated, and demonstrates the constant work needed to make our roads safe for all who use them. In 2024, a report commissioned by the then Minister for Transport recommended the splitting of the RSA into two separate bodies; one with responsibility for road safety and another to oversee processes such as driver testing. Despite the tone of the Department of Transport's initial reaction stating that the report's recommendations would radically transform road safety in Ireland, we recently saw the Minister of State backtrack on these plans. Sadly, this backtracking reflects a wider failure by the Government to implement road safety actions and infrastructure across the State. We see this also in the Government's failure to ensure legislation and regulation is fit for purpose and enforced in relation to scrambler bikes, which are terrorising many communities across the State. This is something that has been raised by my colleagues in the House for many years. In my constituency, Galway East, many towns and villages have seen road safety projects delayed. This is having a significant impact on safety in those areas. In Dunmore, I recently attended a protest, as did the Minister of State, where hundreds of residents expressed their frustration at the failure to progress the Bridge Street regeneration and road widening project. Bridge Street is a bottleneck for users of the N83. The junction there is also a major safety risk. It is a scandal that a street anywhere would be left in such a dangerous and derelict condition, never mind one on a national road. Residents have waited years for these promised improvement works. That must be prioritised for delivery. In Headford, local residents have been voicing concerns for years about the area surrounding the Cloughanover junction on the N84, a national road. This is an extremely busy road in an area with shops, a community centre and a school nearby, yet cars can fly by at 100 km/h. I met local residents there recently. It is absolutely lethal. That also appears to have been put on the long finger. The town of Kinvarra has also seen little progress in seeing much-needed pedestrian crossings and traffic calming measures installed on the N67 through the village. This is a very busy road. A lot of students use this road to walk to and from school. There have been a number of accidents in the village recently, yet the local community cannot get as much as a pedestrian crossing, which they have been demanding for years. There are countless other examples but the likes of these projects need to prioritised.

Sentiment score: -0.03