Vol. 1090 No. 4
We are now into two Private Members' Bills, the first of which is the Road Traffic (Amendment) (Jax’s Law) Bill 2026, being introduced by Deputies Barry Ward and Emer Currie.
Before Deputy Ward takes to his feet, I offer my heartfelt welcome to Nathan Murphy and Saoirse Aylward, who are from County Wexford. They are accompanied by Colleen Langan. They are most welcome to hear the introduction of the Bill.
I move:
That leave be granted to introduce the Road Traffic (Amendment) (Jax’s Law) Bill 2026.
Earlier this year, Deputy Emer Currie and I met with two women who had direct experience of losing a pregnancy as a result of the criminal activity of another person, namely, dangerous or careless driving as the case may be. This Bill is named for Jax, a baby who was never born. His mother and father, as the Ceann Comhairle mentioned, Saoirse Aylward and Nathan Murphy, are in the Gallery, as is Colleen Langan, whose aunt, Róisín Connolly, née Langan, was killed in 2010.
Saoirse suffered her accident in 2024, so there is a 14-year period during which this issue existed without any solution.
What is that issue? At the moment, dangerous and careless driving are essentially minor road traffic offences. They are prosecuted in the District Court. Careless driving carries no custodial penalty, but they carry very limited penalties generally, except where death or serious injury is caused by that dangerous or careless driving, in which case there is an option for the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, to accelerate those matters and raise them to the Circuit Court to prosecute them on indictment, with much bigger penalties and much bigger tariffs available to the court.
However, if somebody is in an accident as a result of careless or dangerous driving and a pregnancy is lost as a result of that accident, that is not viewed as a circumstance that makes that offence more serious. It was identified to us earlier this year that this is a gap in the law and we agree. Not only do we agree but so do over 75 Members of this House who have co-sponsored this Bill with us. I am not aware of any other Bill that has ever come before this House that has been sponsored by as many people. I applaud the fact that there is a cross-party consensus on this from every party and group in this House, who have supported this provision as a sensible measure, not to reopen a debate on ancillary issues but to acknowledge there is a gap in the law whereby it does not recognise the serious consequences a loss of pregnancy causes to an individual, a family and a wider group of people. That is a real problem.
With the Bill, we are striving to do something straightforward. We are trying to amend the road traffic law in a small way to acknowledge that statistics are not kept on pregnancies lost and that there is no real legal recognition or acknowledgement of the fact that when they are lost, it is a serious consequence for the person involved and it should be marked as a much more serious offence.
Deputy Ward and I are moving this Bill today, but it would not be before the House without Saoirse Aylward's extraordinary strength and determination. Saoirse was 31 weeks pregnant when she lost Jax as a result of a road collision. She was preparing for his arrival, had chosen his name, had charted his progress at hospital appointments and listened to his heartbeat, and then she had to say goodbye to her baby boy. My words cannot do justice to what Saoirse has been through, but I know that having lost her son she felt retraumatised by the justice system because while Saoirse was recognised as a victim of that collision, the loss of Jax was not.
At the moment when Saoirse and her family looked to the law for justice, the law was silent, but Saoirse Aylward was not. She has fought for Jax and every family who have found or could find themselves facing the same devastating circumstances. Careless or dangerous driving can be prosecuted on indictment when it results in death or serious bodily harm. This Bill would extend that to where such driving results in the loss of a pregnancy of at least 23 weeks' gestation or a foetus of at least 400 g. That change matters. Prosecution on indictment means these cases can be treated as serious criminal offences in the Circuit Criminal Court, with the wider sentencing powers that brings. This Bill would also allow the Minister to direct the Road Safety Authority, RSA, to collect and publish statistics on pregnancies lost as a result of a road traffic collision - losses that currently go unrecorded.
Saoirse and Jax's dad, Nathan, are here today alongside Susan Gray of PARC Road Safety Group, who supports victims and their families in navigating the system after a devastating loss, and Colleen Langan, who continues to campaign for justice for her aunt. Saoirse refused to accept the silence of the law and today this House has the opportunity to answer her. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, is listening and responding positively. I hope we can now work together to deliver the change that Saoirse has fought for and justice for Jax.
Is the Bill being opposed?
It is not opposed.
I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."
