Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the good wishes. I apologise that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, cannot be here this morning. He is attending the Cabinet meeting.

The Government Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 seeks to improve road safety in Ireland and make our roads safer for all road users. The strategy is based on vision zero, which is an aspiration to have zero deaths or serious injuries by 2050 and it has been adopted across the European Union. The introduction of more consistent and appropriate speed limits will help to improve road safety in Ireland in pursuit of this objective. In September 2023, the Department of Transport published a speed limit review which made key recommendations, including that the default speed limit on national secondary roads should be reduced from 100 km/h to 80 km hour, on local roads from 80 km/h to 60 km/hand on roads in built-up areas from 50 km/h to 30 km/h. We legislated for these changes in the Road Traffic Act 2024, which was voted on in the Dáil and signed into law in April last year.

The Deputy will recall that national legislation sets default speed limits for different classes of roads but devolves responsibility for setting the individual speed limit on any given road to local authorities within parameters defined in the legislation. Local authorities can leave speed limits at the default or apply different limits through what are called special speed limit by-laws. This is quite right, because local authorities are best placed to assess the characteristics of each road and apply the appropriate limits in light of safety and traffic management considerations. The setting of special speed limits by local authorities must be carried out in accordance with the statutory guidelines for setting and managing speed limits in Ireland. Implementing the changes called for by the legislation and review requires local authorities to assess the roads in each of the three classes affected and to consider whether the default or another limit might be appropriate. It is a big task and, therefore, the implementation of the changes is being undertaken in phases, with local roads being addressed first. The Department has worked closely with the local authorities on this first implementation phase and has issued new guidelines to help them in the process. In light of the complexity of the work, the Department agreed that the new local default limit, originally intended to come into effect last November, would come into effect on 7 February 2025.

I understand the Deputy is also concerned about the question of developments along national secondary roads. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TIl, and the local authorities engage on the setting of speed limits on national secondary roads, with TII having the final say. I expect that the Deputy and his constituents will consider what the relationship will be between new developments and possible speed limits, particularly on the N71. We can all imagine scenarios where a new development beside a road will lead to a significant increase in traffic and would have an impact on what is the appropriate speed limit. I assure the Deputy that in these cases TII and the local authorities engage closely to ensure the proposed speed limit alterations are appropriate. Formal requests for consent for the making of a special speed limit by-law involve a public consultation phase and are processed by TII on an ongoing basis. Speed limits are designed to be appropriate to current road requirements, including traffic levels, and can be changed when the requirements change. Local authorities can change the speed limits to fit new developments. Speed limits which currently exist do not act as a barrier to future development.

The timeline for the implementation of phases two and three of the speed limit changes on national secondary roads and roads in urban cores will be informed by the roll-out of the local rural road speed limit change and will take cognisance of the reaction, behavioural response and quantified impacts on metrics such as collisions. I encourage the Deputy to stay in touch with his local authority and councillors, as I am sure he does, about queries on specific roads and the implementation of safer default speed limits as the Minister does not have any power to intervene on the decisions local authorities make on this issue.

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