The Irish Road Haulage Association is openly calling for the Road Safety Authority to be broken up. In a letter to the Councillors of Waterford, the IRHA has called on Waterford Council to join Kerry Council in issuing a vote of no confidence in the RSA.
The Road Safety Authority leads the Governments road safety strategy, education, car and driver testing. An Indecon Report was commissioned in 2024 to “to ensure the RSA is structured appropriately in the years ahead to fulfil its statutory mandate and help to deliver the government’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030.”
Once complete, the then Minister of Transport, Eamon Ryan accepted the report's recommendations, the main one being that the RSA should be divided into two separate bodies, “one focused on the delivery of services and operations and the other responsible for wider road safety initiatives including media campaigns, education and research.”
In recent times however, reports suggest the Department of Transport is no longer pursuing the option of dividing the RSA to two separate organisations, with the cost of such a move being cited as the reason for the reversal.
No confidence
In what is effectively an open letter, the Irish Road Haulage Association, with the signature of its President, Ger Hyland, has called the decision not to break up the RSA, “represents a significant retreat from evidence-based policy and reform that had already been agreed by the government,”
“…we believe this decision will have serious consequences, continued dysfunction within the driving test system, worsening road safety outcomes, and the ongoing operation of a publicly funded body that has been widely criticised as unfit for purpose.
The Irish Road Haulage Association notes with alarm that road fatalities continue to rise, despite independent reviews concluding that structural reform of the RSA is essential because the current framework is failing both the public and the transport sector.
At the time, we described the decision to abandon the Indecon reforms as baffling and irresponsible, a view we maintain. Minster Canney’s public dismissal of stakeholder expertise and evidence-based recommendations highlights a troubling pattern of disengagement from those working on the frontlines of Ireland’s road transport system.
“The Irish Road Haulage Association has consistently warned that delays an inefficiencies in driver training and testing alongside broader operational failures within the RSA impose real and measurable costs on businesses, drivers, and rural communities.
In response the IRHA sent a letter to Waterford Council asked them to join Kerry Council in issuing a vote of no confidence in the RSA. This is, in effect, one of the biggest bodies in the Irish transport sector calling for the public body to be broken up and reformed, a reform the last government agreed with, but this government in reluctant to follow through on.
RSA response
When contacted by The Munster Express, The Road Safety Authority responded with the following statement:
Vision Zero by 2050 is the long-term ambition of the European Commission which all Member States are encouraged to strive for. Ireland formally adopted this vision in the 2020 Programme for Government.
The Safe System approach has been recognised as international best practice and instrumental to achieving ambitious reductions in road deaths and serious injuries. The Government Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, which the Department of Transport is now co-ordinating, is underpinned by the Safe System approach, which is recognised as the best practice approach to achieving Vision Zero.
To deliver on this holistic partnership approach, seven Safe System priority intervention areas have been established and are being progressed, and these rely on collaboration across all major road safety stakeholders:
Safe roads and roadsides (TII, NTA and LAs lead), Safe speeds (AGS, TII, RSA), Safe vehicles (AGS, RSA, HSA), Safe road use (RSA, AGS), Post-crash response (HSE, DoH, Emergency Services), Safe and healthy modes of travel (DoT, NTA, RSA), Safe work-related road use (HSA, AGS, RSA).
The RSA plays a critical role in relation to ‘safe road use’ – developing and delivering age-appropriate road safety education to all road users, from pre-school to third level, as well as in community settings to a broader age cohort.
The RSA also plays an important role in road safety public awareness, delivering tailored evidence-based campaigns to a wide audience to prevent road user engagement in dangerous behaviours and to support the targeted enforcement activity of An Garda Siochana. Research has established that such enforcement activity is more effective when supported by public communications activity.
The RSA also has an important function with respect to safe vehicles, to enhance the safety features and roadworthiness of vehicles on our roads.
As part of the safe system approach, other agencies who are partners in the delivery of the Government Road Safety Strategy, have critical roles in relation to road engineering, policy development including legislation, enforcement, post-crash response and safe work-related road use for example, which are all encapsulated in the priority intervention areas above.
Regarding waiting times for driving tests, the national average waiting time at the end of December was 10.6 weeks, down from 27.3 weeks at the end of April. The Service Level Agreement is 10 weeks.
For non-car categories (e.g. Bus/Truck/Motorbike) the current estimate time to invite is approximately 10 weeks. While it can be a challenge at times to meet the demand for HGV tests, on average, applicants are receiving an invite within 10 weeks of applying.
At end of December there were 1,434 customers awaiting their invite for a truck test and 401 for CPC. At that time there were a further 546 truck tests and 151 CPC tests booked to take place before end January.
The average waiting times for a NCT is 9.9 days, as of the end of December. (This is calculated as the number of days between the time of request and the first available appointment date.)
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting scheme
