Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Road safety is a really important issue. We must punish reckless and dangerous drivers but the speed limit review is not the solution. It ignores the biggest issues of road safety around enforcement and the fact that the Garda traffic corps has fallen by over 40% since 2009. It ignores dangerous junctions and the lack of right-turning lanes that I have been campaigning on for some years such as the lack of traffic-calming measures, road condition and hedge cutting. While I accept to a degree that the limit on many local roads should have been reduced, the blanket approach to national secondary roads of bringing them from 100 km/h to 80 km/h is totally wrong. Take one example, the N60 linking Claremorris, Castlebar and Ballyhaunis is some of the best stretch of road in County Mayo. This Government wants to ram through a total reduction of its limit to 80 km/h. I listened to a TII engineer on RTÉ radio during the week. He said that all roads without a barrier in the middle will be reduced to 80km/h. That means there will no road in the entire county of Mayo where motorists can drive at 100 km/h. We will have a situation where tractors will be overtaking cars in this country. We are penalising the good law-abiding citizens who obey the speed limit on our road. It must be said that this Government has failed to prosecute the reckless and dangerous driving that is occurring in this country. This Government wants to take us back to the ass and cart. While the cart has been consigned to history there is certainly no shortage of asses driving this legislation. I am asking the Government and the Minister of State to bring in some common sense. It must prevail and local democracy must play its part. We have good councillors in this country who should be able to assist with local area engineers to bring some common sense to allow the good stretches of road to remain at the normal speed limit. Where there are dangerous junctions and data suggests there are dangerous areas the limits should be reduced but it should not come from national Government. The disregard for local democracy and local authorities in relation to speed limits is totally wrong and will lead to more deaths on the roads. It will lead to more dangerous overtaking because people will inevitably get frustrated and that will lead to more dangerous issues on the road. I ask the Minister of State to please bring some common sense into this debate.

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