Written answers

Thursday, 7 June 2012

Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Road Signage

8:00 pm

Photo of Brendan GriffinBrendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Question 140: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will engage with his counterpart in Northern Ireland, to see if greater harmony of cross border road signage can be achieved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27571/12]

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Discussions on road safety feature regularly at the Transport Sector of the North-South Ministerial Council and progress continues to be made in relation to cross border road safety issues. The area which has been most successful in terms of co-operation relates to the development of joint road safety advertising campaigns. While each jurisdiction has different road numbering and, in some instances, traffic signage every effort will be made to seek consistency where possible between the traffic signage in the two jurisdictions in respect of destinations.

Some major difficulties exist in relation to the harmonisation of road signage. For instance, Section 95 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 requires text to be displayed both in English and Irish on all road traffic signage in this country. Currently Northern Ireland is only required to display English text which allows them to fit more destinations on a single sign. Another point to note, is that the Road Traffic Act 2004 provided for the changeover from imperial speed limits to metric speed limits and this is reflected in the road signage in our jurisdiction. Northern Ireland still use only imperial speed limits.

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