Tag Archives: Road Safety Authority

This afternoon.

From top: Liz O’Donnell, Chairperson of the RSA, Hildegarde Naughton TD, Minister of State for International and Road Transport and Logistics and Professor Denis Cusack, Director of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety at a media briefing for the Christmas and New Year Enforcement Operation in relation to road safety.

Meanwhile…

Helluva drug.

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Public Services Card; Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee this morning; the Public Accounts Committee

This morning.

The Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon is appearing before the Public Accounts Committee.

It follows Ms Dixon finding that there is no legal basis for the State demanding the use of the Public Services Card in order to access a range of public services beyond social welfare payments.

Ms Dixon ordered that Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Regina Doherty’s department stop issuing new PSCs, with immediate effect, to people seeking a service outside of her department, and that it delete the supporting documentation – such as utility bills, etc – that the department has retained on the 3.2million card holders.

Ms Doherty is categorical her department will not be complying with these orders and has said the State will challenge the findings of Ms Dixon – in court, if needs be.

Meanwhile…

Irish Times journalist Jack Horgan-Jones has obtained documents [above], under the Freedom of Information Act, outlining radio ads that the Road Safety Authority planned to use but scrapped.

It’s understood they were scrapped after Minister for Transport Shane Ross announced in May 2018 that applicants for the driver theory test would not have to produce a PSC to satisfy identification requirements, reportedly after the Attorney General told the minister such a mandatory requirement was not legal.

This is despite Minister Doherty saying over the past few weeks that the State will challenge the findings of the DPC based on “incredibly strong” advice from the Attorney General.

Asked about Mr Ross’s announcement, Ms Doherty told the Dáil last night:

“I cannot say why the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, said what he said other than to say I am not responsible for the delivery of policy…

“I cannot say why he said what he said. I am only responsible for delivery of policy in my Department. I do not know if he got legal advice and to answer the same question, I do not know if the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade got legal advice on its policy formation.”

Watch the Public Accounts Committee proceedings live here

Ah now.

This afternoon.

Assistant Garda Commissioner David Sheahan with Moyagh Murdock, Chief Executive of the Road Safety Authority (RSA)  unveiling a road safety progress review, covering the period January 1 – July 29, 2019… with the visual aid of a Northern-Ireland-may-not-even-exist-for-all-we-care map.

*shakes fist*

Leah Farrell/RollingNews

Meanwhile…

National Road Policing unit Garda Mark Murphy and actor Conor Creaby this afternoon

This afternoon.

Store Street, Dublin.

The “Mobility App” will also allow individual gardaí to process fixed charge notices, cutting down on back office paperwork and allowing gardaí to spend more time in the community…

…The app can also add Eircodes to addresses using secure web services. Some 2,000 individual gardaí are to be designated to use the app by the end of this year.

What could possibly go wrong?

New Garda mobile app ‘will revolutionise roads policing’ (Irish Times)

Leah Farrell/RollingNews

Yesterday.

Seems credible.

After all, they are the Road Safety Authority.

Not so fast..

Dublin Cycling Campaign writes:

Article 22 applies to mechanically propelled cycles (more commonly known as motorbikes). Article 29 applies to pedal cycles (bicycles). All of this information is freely available online.

Oh.

Thanks  Conor Kearney

Cyclist passes a traffic light

Aaron Rogan, in The Times Ireland edition, reports:

An “expert” with the Road Safety Authority claimed that cyclists were a “law unto themselves” and had a “complete disregard for the rules of the road” in the first draft of a controversial newspaper article that prompted a backlash when it referred to the increasing number of bike users as “swarming masses”.

The reference was removed by the RSA before the article was submitted for publication along with a claim that cyclists had developed a “majority-rules mindset” and were “battling it out for first place in the cycle lane, or as some call it, the ‘psycho’ lane”.

The toning down of the article, published in the Irish Independent’s motoring section under the byline “RSA expert”, was revealed in documents released to The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

RSA expert’s ‘anti-cyclist’ piece toned down (Aaron Rogan, The Times Ireland edition)

Rollingnews

This morning.

Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin 2

The launch of World Remembrance Day, taking place on Sunday, November 18 to recall the “many millions killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others who are also affected”.

Above from left Garda Superintendent Con O Donohue; Neil Fox, whose sister Donna was killed by a truck when she was cycling 3 years ago; Moyagh Murdock, Chief Executive Officer, Road Safety Authority (RSA) and Liz O’Donnell, RSA Chairperson.

World Remembrance Day for Traffic Victims (RSA)

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Today’s Irish Daily Mail.

Good times.

tuohy90361270

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co4PQ7vtgco&&w=600]

Limerick TD Patrick O’Donovan (Fine Gael) asked the new chairperson of the Road Safety Authority Liz O’Donnell at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications earlier for her opinion on the increase of penalty points from two to three and if she thought the penalty was disproportionate.

If that’s the deputy’s attitude, what’s the point?

Name the O’Donnell jammer anyone?

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

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Interim Garda Commissioner Noirín O’Sullivan speaking at the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality on Wednesday and political correspondent for the Current Affairs Department of RTÉ, Katie Hannon on Prime Time last night.

On Wednesday, Ms O’Sullivan appeared before the justice committee and said:

“Senior Garda management are very supportive of Sgt McCabe and certainly are in contact with him on a daily basis…His local management team have been in contact with him and they’re there to support him and assist him and that’s been made very clear to him and he also has the welfare services at his disposal.”

However, last night on Prime Time, Ms Hannon revealed that what Ms O’Sullivan told the committee was untrue. She said Sgt McCabe was watching the proceedings on Wednesday afternoon at home with his family and immediately called Ms O’Sullivan’s office to tell it that what she said was untrue.

This resulted in Ms O’Sullivan phoning Sgt McCabe, accepting his version of events, and offering Sgt McCabe her full support. She told him all his allegations would be thoroughly investigated and suggested that he nominate an appropriate person to whom he could bring his allegations.

Ms Hannon  reported that the Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny also contacted Sgt McCabe to also offer senior management’s full support.

From her discussion with Prime Time host, David McCullagh.

David McCullagh: ” Katie we now know that the interim commissioner phoned Sgt McCabe last night: what can you tell us about what was said?”

Katie Hannon: “Well, I understand the phone call concentrated on this issue, that became quite a controversy after her appearance at the Oireachtas Committee yesterday. But whether or not senior officers had been in touch with him, in regular touch with him, to offer their support, in relation to his complaints about ongoing harassment and I understand that, after quite a brief discussion on this, that the interim commissioner accepted that what she had told the Justice Committee yesterday was in fact not the case. And we have confirmation from the Garda Press Office tonight that she has been in touch with the Oireachtas Committee to clarify that.”

McCullagh: “So the Garda Commissioner was misinformed and she, in turn, misinformed the committee which would be regarded quite a serious matter in political circles.”

McCullagh: “Now do we know what sort of harassment is alleged?”

Hannon: “Well, I understand that there has been a number of incidents, maybe up to a dozen, which have been the subject of complaint by Sgt McCabe, some of them are along the line of what Mick Wallace stated there: senior officers making remarks, along the lines that he ‘destroyed the force’. Junior officers being asked, during reviews, whether or not Garda McCabe had hindered them in their work and other things that might have been considered minor but, maybe in this context, not so much. Like the duty roster in his station having an extra column added for whistleblowers but I understand that the incident that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, was an incident last week where it was an operational matter that Sgt Maurice McCabe was involved in. He understood that, or realised that crucial information had been withheld from him, that put him in an invidious position with potentially serious consequences, he believed, and he found, after that, he decided that that was the last straw and I understand that that was the incident that prompted him to go on stress leave and he has been on stress leave since Monday.”

Further to this, Broadsheet understands from a source close to Sgt McCabe that the ‘operational matter’ referred to by Ms Hannon relates to an incident whereby Sgt McCabe was tasked with drawing up a road safety plan in the Midlands.

However, important information – including a Road Safety Authority report critical of a Garda proposal on the road safety plan – was deliberately withheld from Sgt McCabe.

Watch Prime Time back in full here

Previously: No Change

The Thin Blue Timeline [Updated]