John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today I want to discuss a very important matter, which is traffic safety outside schools and primary schools in particular. I attended a public meeting last night in Bellurgan in County Louth attended by over 40 parents of children attending Bellurgan National School. Some people may say this is too much of a parochial issue to bring up in the Seanad but I do so specifically because after more than ten years, people in the Bellurgan community cannot get a basic necessity like traffic calming measures outside the primary school.

Parents are not allowing their children to walk to school and they must drive their kids there because the building is on a regional road with such a high volume of traffic going past every day. It is the only school on the entire Cooley Peninsula that does not have any form of traffic calming measures outside it. I raise this in the Seanad today because after more than ten years of this matter being raised, we are still in the crux because Louth County Council is refusing to put in anything of real substance that would reduce the speed on the regional road. It has put in traffic measures like signage etc. but we need a physical deterrent in the form of ramps or something like that.

I raise this today because there should be some sort of policy originating from the Department of Education providing guidance to schools and local authorities on the type of traffic calming measures which can be put in place outside schools. It should not be an àla carteoption whereby some schools in communities have traffic calming measures while others do not. The important aspect of Bellurgan National School is it has an autism spectrum disorder unit as well, which means there are vulnerable children in the school who may not have spatial awareness or awareness of danger posed to them right outside their front door.

I would really appreciate a debate in this House around traffic safety in particular outside our schools in rural communities like Bellurgan in County Louth. It is a debate that has been overlooked in recent times because there is a different approach in different local authorities. There is also a different approach in different communities or areas. We need a wide-scale approach right across the country for traffic calming measures outside primary schools, and that is a debate I would really welcome with the Minister at some stage.