Motion on Road Safety - 30th November 2005

Motion on Road Safety – 30th November 2005

Mr. Norris: I welcome this debate, but I am
sorry it is so adversarial. We make a mistake by
taking the attitude regularly that we will have one
party praising the Minister and the other attacking
him for failure. This carping style does not
go down well with the public, particularly when
dealing with a subject as serious as road safety.
The debate has not been confrontational, but the
terms are, which is a pity.
It is useful that this matter is addressed in the
Joint Committee on Transport, of which both
Senator Dooley and I are members. Mr. Eddie
Shaw appeared before the committee recently
and he provided a very interesting breakdown
and recommendations, including legislative
recommendations. I will not summarise them
here, but the Minister would do well to look at
the report of the committee. The committee acts
in a neutral atmosphere and that is why it is so
valuable.
With regard to how gardaı´ form an opinion that
somebody is drunk, a dreadful situation was
reported on the radio recently where a woman
spoke in a very dignified manner about how her
husband who had a stroke was left to die on the
floor of the Garda station because gardaı´ thought
he was drunk.
On the matter of speeding, we must have consistency
and coherence with regard to speed
limits. They are absurd and all over the place. We
will not have respect for the law unless we do
something to ensure it can be respected. Some
issues are quite obvious with regard to crashes.
Every weekend we get the same kind of syndrome,
we find a group of young people with
powerful cars on secondary roads in a rural environment
in the early hours of Sunday morning —
quite often drink is involved. Let us examine
rather than evade this issue.
There are also circumstances where the authorities
have a real responsibility. I want to raise a
particular case which illustrates a serious worry. I
refer to a young woman called Aisling Gallagher
who was killed in Mayo. Her parents have been
in touch with me. She was travelling on the road
after a shopping trip and was due to catch an
aeroplane to America the following day. There
was a temporary surface on the road. There was
no warning about the use of dense bitumen
macadam forming the top layer. There were markings
on the road which suggested it was a full,
proper surface, but it was not. There were no
indications of a speed restriction.
The speed limit sign on that road indicated 100
km/h. One is not compelled to drive at 100 km/h
in such a speed zone but one has a sense of safety
if the authorities are of the view that when driving
at 100 km/h one will be safe. Driving at even
30 km/h in this case would probably have been
enough to lead to this accident. The parents in
this case feel there was serious disregard for
public safety because there was no safety warning
and there was an inappropriate temporary surface,
and this has continued to be the position
since then.
This girl was only 20 years old. She had got
an honours degree. She was a wonderful young,
attractive, intelligent woman with her life in front
of her. The National Roads Authority had outlawed
the use of DBM wearing course outside 50
km/h zones, and there was a sign indicating a
speed limit of 100 km/h on this road. This young
girl, Aisling Gallagher, was approaching a bend
in road in the village of Murrivaugh had to reduce
speed because the car in front was turning right.
Immediately and unexplainedly, her car veered
across the road in the path of a loaded concrete
wagon coming in the opposite direction. Neither
motorist had taken any alcohol and this was
shown to be the case subsequently and, furthermore,
neither was speeding.
The Minister needs to examine the question of
road surfaces. Some are clearly done wrong. I
have evidence in this case that the buck was
passed from one Department to another, to the
Health and Safety Authority, to the National
Roads Authority and then passed back to the
county council where the process began. I will
send copies of this information to the Minister.
This issue is serious and I believe it may have
been at the root of the tragic accident involving
the school bus in Trim.