{"id":267454,"date":"2026-01-04T22:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T22:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/267454\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T22:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T22:49:11","slug":"disbanding-road-safety-authority-would-take-up-to-two-years-says-minister-of-state-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/267454\/","title":{"rendered":"Disbanding Road Safety Authority would take up to two years, says Minister of State \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disbanding the Road Safety Authority<\/a> (RSA) and splitting its work between two new organisations would take up to two years, Minister of State for Transport Se\u00e1n Canney<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

An independent external review of the RSA by Indecon Economic Consultants recommended it be reformed by separating the authority into two agencies, one that is responsible for road safety and another for operational activities such as the NCT and driver testing.<\/p>\n

However, the Government has decided not to implement its recommendations.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9 radio\u2019s This Week programme, Mr Canney said reform of the organisation was a better option than disbandment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be reformed. We can reform it under the present structures that are there. If I was to say we will split up the organisation into two different bodies, I would be talking about taking a legislative route, which would take up to 18 months to two years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m talking about an immediate emergency, which I have here, and I want to make sure that we can look and put in place the measures that we need to help reduce the fatalities and the collisions on our roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Canney made his comments following the worst year for road deaths for more than a decade. A total of 190 people were killed on the roads in 2025, the highest number since 2014. <\/p>\n

Since the new year, two men in their 30s were killed in separate crashes in Longford and Kerry.<\/p>\n

Mr Caney said he sympathised with the families of the bereaved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had many meetings with the RSA, with road victims\u2019 families, with representatives, with the garda\u00ed, with our own department and the Department of Justice and we have been fighting to try to stem the carnage we have on the roads,\u201d he said \u201cAny life that\u2019s lost is too many\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he would be meeting RSA chief executive Sam Waide and chairwoman Anne Graham in the coming weeks to \u201cplan how we\u2019re going to reinvigorate the RSA to bring it back into an effective unit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Caney is also proposing legislation for a \u201cgraduated\u201d system of penalty points to punish those driving at extreme speeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say it very simply that people who are out on the roads who are breaking the law, there is a consequence, and the bigger the offence, the more severe the punishment will be. I think that is important that we get that message out there.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disbanding the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and splitting its work between two new organisations would take up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,11697,79877,5285,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-267454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-road-safety","22":"tag-road-safety-authority","23":"tag-sean-canney","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115839274995090760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}