Railway Safety Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01
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Keira Keogh (FG), Mayo

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on the Railway Safety Bill 2026, which is important legislation aimed at modernising our railway safety framework, strengthening accident and investigation procedures and ensuring that the highest standards of safety continue to apply across Ireland's rail network. At its core, the Bill provides a primary legislative basis to ensure the Railway Accident Investigation Unit can continue to perform its important function of investigating railway accidents and incidents. Changes at a European level mean that it is necessary to ensure that the unit continues to have the appropriate statutory basis and powers to carry out that work effectively.
The Bill comes at a time when more and more people are choosing rail. It is great to see that Iarnród Éireann had its strongest ever year last year, carrying more than 55 million passengers across Intercity, DART and commuter services, which I believe was a 9% increase on the previous year. The Westport line in my county experienced significant growth, with passenger numbers reaching approximately 773,000 in 2025, an increase of more than 8% on the previous year. They are great numbers. The Luas also celebrated a record-breaking year, with more than 55 million passenger journeys across the red and green lines.
Those figures are positive, but as passenger numbers grow, so too does the responsibility on all of us to ensure that our rail network is safe, reliable and properly resourced. As a Deputy from Mayo, I approach the Bill with a particular appreciation of the importance of rail services to regional communities. The rail services that connect towns like Westport, Castlebar, Claremorris, Ballyhaunis and Ballina with the rest of the county are a vital link for our county. Workers, students, tourists and families avail of rail transport and for them it is not a luxury; it is an essential part of our transport infrastructure.
As we encourage greater use of public transport and seek to reduce our emissions, we must maintain confidence in the safety of our railways. I cannot speak about railway safety without acknowledging the recent tragedy in Kiltybo near Ballyhaunis in my county where a collision between a train and a car claimed the life of 12-year-old Eoin Doyle who was on his way home from GAA training. The loss of such a young life has devastated Ballyhaunis and all the people right across Mayo. Before I continue, I wish to say that my thoughts remain with Eoin's parents, sister and wider family, as well as with the whole community in Ballyhaunis, as they continue to come to terms with such a profound loss. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.
Tragedies bring into sharp the focus the critical importance of robust safety procedures, appropriate protections at level crossings and the continuous reviewing of safety practices across our rail network. It is a stark reminder of why the highest standards of railway safety must always be maintained. I particularly welcome the provisions in this Bill that reinforce the principle that safety investigations are about establishing what happened, learning from an incident and preventing similar incidents from occurring again. Public confidence depends on knowing that when a serious incident occurs, it will be examined thoroughly and independently and that lessons will be learned. This is fundamental for passengers and railway workers and operators alike.
While I support the objectives of the Bill, legislation alone cannot guarantee railway safety. We must ensure that continued investment in railway infrastructure, signalling systems, track maintenance, technology, staff training and recruitment remain essential. Safety standards are strongest when good legislation is matched with adequate resources and investment on the ground.
From a Mayo perspective, investment in rail remains critically important. We must continue to strengthen regional connectivity and ensure that communities in the west receive the same level of ambition for public transport as communities anywhere else in the country. Safe, reliable and efficient rail services are essential for balanced regional development. They support tourism and local economies, provide sustainable transport choices and help our towns and communities remain connected. The Government has rightly emphasised increased public transport usage as part of its climate, economic and regional development objectives, but achieving that requires public confidence. Every passenger boarding a train in Westport, Ballina, Castlebar or at any train station or stop across the country must be confident that safety comes first and that we have a system capable of investigating incidents, learning from them and continuously improving our standards.
Another significant element of this Bill is the modernisation of Parts 9 and 10 of the Railway Safety Act 2005, which relate to intoxicants and safety-critical railway workers. We can all agree that this is an area where, frankly, reform is overdue. When the Railway Safety Act was enacted in 2005, the statutory alcohol limits applying to train drivers reflected the limits applied in road traffic legislation at that time. Road traffic law has subsequently changed and the limits for professional road drivers were reduced. A category of "specified persons" was introduced covering professional drivers, such as bus drivers, taxi and HGV drivers. The railway legislation, however, simply did not keep pace, and the consequences are quite extraordinary. Under the existing legislation, train and tram drivers can have an alcohol concentration of up to 80 mg per 100 ml of blood. This is compared with only 20 mg for specified professional road drivers and 50 mg for an ordinary motorist. In other words, the statutory limit applying to a safety-critical railway worker can currently be four times that of an equivalent professional road driver. That discrepancy was identified years ago. Indeed, when these proposals were brought forward in 2018, the then Minister for Transport, former Deputy Shane Ross, said the changes would bring consistency between the safety standards applying to train drivers and equivalent professional drivers on our roads. That was in 2018. Obviously, we have had a pandemic since then, but it is reasonable to wonder why it has taken us this long to get this legislation before us. If we identified a gap in safety so long ago, particularly one concerning intoxicants and people entrusted with the safety of hundreds of passengers, we should not need this long to close that gap. The thousands of citizens and visitors who board our trains and Luas services every day need to know that the standards applying to the people carrying out safety critical work are rigorous, modern and consistent. They should simply be able to assume that the person responsible for operating a train carrying hundreds of people is subject to at least the same rigorous safety standards as other professional drivers. This Bill addresses that anomaly and modernises the provisions around testing, sampling, analysis and enforcement. That is welcome. It supports the wider objective of ensuring our transport safety legislation remains coherent and fit for purpose as Ireland's transport network continues to evolve. It is my hope that this now moves and becomes law as quickly as possible.
I cannot speak about rail in Mayo without also taking a sidestep to talk about its future. This week, I met the CEO of Iarnród Éireann and I was delighted to hear that the trolley service trial on the Galway to Dublin line is progressing well. I always talk about the fact that passengers on the Mayo-Dublin line are often on the train for three and a half hours without access to water, tea or food. Genuinely, that is more than an inconvenience, especially for people with disabilities who might not be able to go to the shop and bring a hot cup of tea with them as easily as other people. We also must think about the number of tourists who use that line. If they are on the train for three and a half hours, they expect to have access to catering. My message to the passengers on the Galway-Dublin route is to please drink as much tea and coffee and eat as many bags of crisps as they possibly can in order to help build a business case for extending this service to Mayo and other intercity routes.
We also need to be much more ambitious about our rail freight. It is particularly important when we look at major employers in regional Ireland. Recently, I visited Vantive, which is a fantastic employer in Castlebar. It is competing in global markets and must demonstrate that its operations are as sustainable as possible. Currently, we have a good freight service and hub out of Ballina, but there is a good business case to have one in Castlebar as well so we do not have trucks driving an hour from Castlebar to Ballina to get onto the rail line. I want to see us build on that freight service in Ballina and examine the potential for additional rail freight infrastructure to serve Castlebar and the wider county. If we are serious about balanced regional development, decarbonisation and supporting major employers outside Dublin, rail cannot simply be about moving passengers; freight must form part of that ambition too.
I will finish by talking about the western rail corridor. I do not know if Members saw the TikTok video this week, created by AI, that made very handsome Irish-looking men in nice coats. If we could get the train to Knock Airport as quickly as AI could, it would be wonderful. That video has rallied concerns about the potential 35 km greenway coming into Sligo. We must ensure that we are competing with AI videos that can be produced at the drop of a hat to ensure people there that if the greenway goes ahead, the railway will be preserved as promised to reinstate rail on that line in the future. The Athenry to Claremorris route is, hopefully, due to start in 2028 and open in 2031. That would be a good business case to get all the way to Sligo. We want to see rail all the way from Limerick to Mayo, onto Sligo and into Donegal to ensure the west of Ireland is connected.
This Bill is fundamentally about maintaining confidence in our railway system, confidence that passengers and workers will be protected, accidents and incidents will be properly investigated, outdated anomalies in our law will be corrected and confidence that, as our rail network grows, safety will remain at the centre of that growth. I support the objectives of this Bill and I look forward to its progression.

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Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-10-01