Minister of State with responsibility for road safety Seán Canney has said that while there is a lot of room for improvement in the Road Safety Authority, it is better to work within the current organisation to deal with issues that can be addressed, such as waiting times for driving tests.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "In my experience working in the private sector, sometimes it's better to look at what the problem is rather than just doing something to change it."
He added that the decision not to split the RSA is based on the evidence of what improvements have been made within the authority in the last 12 months and he said more improvements will be coming.
"I've met on a number of occasions with the Chief Executive and the new Chair of the Board and I want them to bring forward to me in January what steps they will take to actually improve the service that they're delivering.
"And I think the biggest area of non-delivery would be in the area of the road safety campaigns and being visible, more visible.
"They are an authority, the Road Safety Authority is an authority that should be out there and should be more engaging in relation to the fight against road collisions and road deaths.
"And I do believe that from my experience over the last year, a lot of things, if I waited to split the organisation before I directed them what to do with the driver testing, we still would have a 27-week leading time.
"So, what I'm saying is that it's better to solve the problems that are within the organisation than to be just splitting it up.
"It's a small organisation. It's maximum 500 people creating two boards, two chief executives, creating all of that. But what actually are you achieving by it?"
Mr Canney said that he has read the Indecom report, "and I take on board what they have said."
He said; "they've produced a number of different options and I've decided at this stage it is better to try and work within so that we actually get a more efficient and a more working Road Safety Authority.
"They do a huge amount of work, the driving testing, the truck testing, they're responsible for all of that, as well as the road safety messaging and I think there is a lot of room for improvement and I would be working with them, with my department officials to make sure that we bring in these changes", he said.
In relation to court disqualifications on driver records and mismatches, he said that he is working with the Minister for Justice on that issue.
"We're bringing in new legislation, we're bringing in technology so that the gardaí will be able to check the car, check the licence of the driver of the car, is it in place, is there penalty points, all of this type of thing.
"All of these things are being, I suppose, reformed".
However, he said, he did not know the extent of the problem.
"I don't know the scale of the problem. I've asked my officials to come back to me with a report from the RSA and also as I say it is also it's a Court Services issue, so we need to talk to them as well about it and see how we can tighten up on that."
He said that there are people driving who have been disqualified by a court.
"Absolutely, and there's a lot of anomalies you have even like learner permits you have people who maybe 14, 15, 16 learner permits without actually ever doing a driving test.
"And that is something that I have directed the RSA to sort out. It has been resolved to a certain extent.
"I'm bringing in regulations, but in the meantime, the reason why we have an uptake now in driver testing, more appointments have been looked for, for the simple reason that those people who have their permits actually know they have to do their test so that they won't be on the road illegally.
"And I think that is another part of it."
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RSA not getting the message across, says campaigner
Earlirer founder of Parc Road Safety Group Susan Gray questioned the decision by the Government to do what she said is "a complete U-turn" on disbanding the RSA.
Speaking on the same programme, she said if the RSA is not going to be done away with then they need to change the leadership, as the organisation is not reducing the number of road deaths.
Ms Gray, who founded Parc in 2006 two years after her husband Stephen died in a road traffic crash, asked "what has the RSA achieved in the last year to make them change their mind?
"We know they got the driving test waiting times down in September, as Minister Canney directed them to.
"But we're keeping an eye on it, and it's climbing again. We have centres waiting now where people are waiting 22 weeks to get a call.
"And when you think that there's 180 people lying in their graves now, and it's not even the end of the year, our hearts go out to their families, how many will we have by the end of the year?
"It's 16 more than we had the same time last year."
She added; "if they're not going to disband the RSA, they really need to select new leadership there, without a doubt, because the leadership we have at the moment is not bringing the road deaths down.
"The message, they're not getting the message across."
On Minister Canney saying that it is too costly to split the RSA, Ms Gray said; "what cost are they putting on lives?
"Seriously? It should be nothing about cost. They should want the best people in charge of a road safety authority.
"They should have people like the great Noel Brett that we had in 2006 and the late Gay Byrne.
"What a team they were. They got the roads down dramatically while they were in charge.
"They called out the Government on numerous occasions when they were not getting what they needed, what they believed would bring the road deaths down.
"We haven't seen the likes of them since. We need somebody like that".
Asked if she believed that the Government is taking road safety seriously, Ms Gray said: "No, they're not.
"We had the former Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, speaking before the Transport Committee last May 2024.
"He promised 150 additional roads policing members to be assigned to units across the country by the end of this year.
"Now, on the 8th of October this year, the new assistant commissioner spoke at the Transport Committee.
"She was asked how many new gardaí have we now assigned to roads policing.
"She said 68. That was 82 short of the 150."
She asked how can the Government and the Taoiseach continually say as new gardaí are trained in Templemore that it will free up gardaí to appoint to roads policing?
"We've been listening to that for the last year. Loads of guards have been newly trained since. We're not seeing them getting appointed to roads policing."
