Eileen Lynch (Fine Gael)

Today I want to speak about the increased incidence of road traffic accidents on the Macroom bypass and the N22 east and west of the town as a result of wild deer. Since the opening of the bypass almost two years ago, there has been a massive increase in the rate of incidents involving wild deer. The deer have been displaced and that is causing more of them to be on the road. Almost every week I get a call from a member of the public advising that there has been an accident either on the bypass or east or west of it. Last week I got a call from a member of the public whose car had been hit by a deer between Ballyvourney and Macroom, causing hundreds of euro worth of damage. I am aware that measures have been taken by the Minister for agriculture to introduce deer management units, which have been set up by Farm Relief Services. There is a unit in Cork and another in Kerry. I call on the Minister to come to the House to clarify whether these deer management units are working to their required level of efficiency and also to look at whether we can put a compensation scheme in place for those who have accidents as a result of these deer. I know deer are not owned by anyone as such, but when we are not putting the correct management tools in place and innocent people are having accidents as a result, we need to look to look at it.

I am aware of two new pilot schemes that have been rolled out in County Kerry. One is the detection-and-alert scheme and the other is a deterrent scheme, whereby noise is generated at the side of roads to prevent deer going onto them. Similar schemes have been implemented in the United States. I ask the Minister to look at that to see if it could be implemented on a country-wide basis, with specific emphasis on roads where it is becoming more hazardous and deer are causing more road accidents.