Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

On International Workers' Day, I will talk about speed limits. I will give a few figures because I like figures. There are 3.2 million vehicles in this country. There are 5,413 km of national roads; 2,696 km of national secondary roads; 13,122 km of regional roads; and 81,293 km of local roads.

The Government has reduced the speed limit on local roads to 60 km/h. Some of these roads are 6 m wide. Rather than allow local authorities to reduce speed limits on roads that are unsafe or, for example, only 3 m wide, the Government implemented a blanket ban across all local roads. There are 81,293 km of road to which the 60 km/h speed limit applies. How do we break this down into brass tacks? I have worked out the average. There are 3.2 million vehicles that use local roads. Even if we reduced that by 50%, which is 1.5 million, those vehicles will use 17 extra gallons of fuel on the basis of the mileage they would do. It would be 24,000 miles in a diesel car and 17,000 in a petrol vehicle, and they would burn 17 extra gallons of fuel. At the same time, we are increasing the carbon tax.

In the context of Europe, Ireland is going to have to pay fines for not meeting our carbon emissions targets. We are taxing people more by reducing the speed limits in areas where they can actually drive at decent speeds. People travelling across the country in their cars are doing so in fourth gear. I have checked the averages of all the cars across the country, and people are travelling in fourth gear along the 81,293 km of road to which I refer. These are five- and six-speed cars, and even automatic seven-speed vehicles. It is fourth or fifth gear in a seven-speed car and fourth gear in a car with a five- or six-speed gearbox. That means more fuel being burnt and more emissions, and the Government is increasing carbon tax.

See this speech in context