13-07-2025
- Automotive
- Irish Daily Mirror
Government's €13M drive to cut road carnage
The Government is investing €13million to help fix up dangerous local roads identified as accident blackspots.
It comes after another week of carnage on the roads, with five people losing their lives in accidents across the country.
The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has also warned that the longer summer days can be the most dangerous.
Junior Transport Minister Sean Canney says the Government is working with Local Authorities around the country to identify areas more prone to accidents.
He said: 'Safety analysis is conducted annually on the regional and local road network, using collision data, collected originally by members of An Garda Síochána.
'This process identifies high-risk road safety areas, referred to as Locations of Interest (LOIs). Local authorities are engaged to review and implement appropriate remedial measures at these sites.'
The Minister said each year, authorities are invited to apply for funding from his Department to support engineering improvements at these LOI sites, supplementing their own resources.
'This investment is targeted by utilising collision statistics and the Network Safety Analysis.
'In addition to these LOI sites, local authorities also submit for safety schemes based on local knowledge and engineering expertise,' Minister Canney said.
'Approximately €13m will be invested in Low-Cost Safety Improvement Works in 2025.
'Additional road safety schemes are also funded through specific improvement and strategic regional and local road grant programmes.'
He added there are two risk analysis mechanisms used for collision monitoring.
Reactive collision analysis carries out analysis of the entire national road network to identify locations that have above average concentrations of collisions.
Meanwhile, proactive safety inspections is a safety assessment of the national road network that requires road safety auditors to visually inspect the network every three to four years.
Minister Canney was responding to a query from Kildare TD, Naoise Ó Cearúil, who had asked how his Department was using ongoing data analysis and local knowledge to identify accident-prone areas.
