Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter on the Adjournment. Sinéad McDaid was a young woman of 22 years of age. She was driving on the Culdaff Road, Donegal, on 12 June 2001 bringing a present to her mother-in-law on the occasion of her birthday. On a straight stretch of road, on the approach to Culdaff where resurfacing work had commenced earlier in the day, the car left the road. It went off chippings, down an embankment, struck a culvert and landed on its roof. Sinéad, due to move into her new house the following Friday, was fatally injured.

It subsequently transpired that the hazardous situation was inadequately signposted with only one sign on the approach hidden in the long grass. There was no health and safety plan for the job and the engineer did not sign off stating that the road was safe for the public to use, as he is required to do. There are regulations to ensure people are warned of an upcoming hazard. Those regulations stipulate that warning signs be erected, highlighting the temporary or unsafe surface, and they must be erected by the local authority.

Donegal County Council did not use a mechanical road sweeper to sweep up the surplus chippings, which by its own guidelines it should have done. It did this after the accident. The accident scene was not preserved and photos were taken by Garda Mick Murray of Morris tribunal fame after a mechanical sweeper had done its work sweeping up chippings, including chippings from other potholes. The garda did not conduct a proper investigation of the scene. In fact, the Garda report stated that Sinéad had hit a bridge which is one and a half miles from the scene. This was subsequently changed. I understand it is the duty of the Garda Síochána to inform the Health and Safety Authority of such an accident and it is the duty of the HSA to visit the scene. I understand neither happened.

I brought the case of Aisling Gallagher of Murrevaugh, Mulranny, County Mayo, killed on 22 January on an unfinished road to the attention of the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Callely, in the Dáil on 24 February 2005. He responded that road conditions were responsible for 2.5% of road deaths in 2002 — nine people out of 377 killed. I stated that this was a conservative figure and represented only the tip of the iceberg. Since then, five girls have been killed in County Meath. I asked the Minister in February if he would conduct an audit of all serious and fatal road accidents. I pleaded that this should be done so that more people would not die on the roads. A very high number of road accidents are due to road conditions so I am seeking action on this matter.

The people who died in Meath, Donegal and Mayo were doing nothing wrong. Their vehicles were roadworthy and they were not speeding. People have a right to use road surfaces upon which they can safely brake. Regulations are not being enforced, however, and people are dying as a result. The tragic aspect of all this is that we can do something about improving road conditions if people would only act to enforce the regulations.

The Minister and the National Roads Authority say they are not responsible. The local authority is responsible but it is required to police itself. If it does not do so adequately, does that not amount to a licence to kill? These were ongoing road works that had not been signed off on. I am asking the HSA to re-examine this situation. The figure of 2.5% should be 22.5%. We need to know exactly what number of road accidents is due to road conditions. I requested that audit on 24 February this year, but where is it? Road conditions comprised the major, if not the only, factor in the three accidents to which I have referred. It escapes me how the same authority could treat so differently one incident which occurred on an unfinished road surface under construction by a county council, and another where there was a perilous lack of appropriate warning signage. I am glad the County Meath case is being investigated because that needs to be done. If the Minister had taken my advice on investigating the accidents in Donegal and Mayo, would the investigation in Meath have been necessary at all?

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