Road Safety: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel The consequences of road deaths are felt in the silence at the kitchen tables, where an empty chair shows the space where a loved one once sat, in a school desk which now sits empty, in communities that are gathering far too often for funerals instead of celebrations. Every death on our road sends shock waves far beyond the collision itself, leaving families, friends, colleagues and entire towns grappling with sudden and unimaginable loss. Over recent decades, improvements have been made. Road safety has been on the agenda for many decades but at some point it fell off. It is really worrying to see that over the last few years we have seen a sharp rise in the deaths on roads. In Carlow, over the past three years, we have experienced nearly as many fatalities due to traffic incidences as the six years before the pandemic. The numbers in Kilkenny are very similar. Behind all of these numbers are lives and families that have been destroyed and utterly shattered. It is seriously concerning that we are seeing an increase in the number of needless road deaths. We did so well. We made so many improvements and it feels like we are going back to a darker time. Something has to be done to stop this trend. I welcome the action that was taken regarding the N80 in Carlow, which has tragically led to the deaths of five people and two crashes over the last two years. I would also like to know what plans are in place for Yellowford Cross Roads and the N81, which has a high accident rate in Carlow. The N78 going through Castlecomer is another dangerous road. In particular, the N24 in south Kilkenny near Glenmore, is an incredibly dangerous stretch of road. It is one of the worst roads in the country, yet funding for improvements on that road has still been delayed and stalled in the last NDP round. I am sure we were all shocked by the headlines of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety report showing how often the same people are being arrested again and again for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. In a 12-month period, 260 people were arrested at least twice, with some being arrested up to ten times. This would also point that the current measures to stop people drinking and driving are not working. We need to see additional measures to reduce dangerous driving. Last year we had the Crowe report, which showed that gardaí tasked with policing the roads were not carrying out their duties. There was a reluctance to carry out their duties around safety and road policing. That needs to change. We need more gardaí policing bad driving and higher penalties for repeat offenders because the current system simply is not working. I think it was mentioned by another Senator that the easiest way to make sure the roads are safer is to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. We need to see major public transport upgrades in order that people are getting out of their cars, which are statistically much more dangerous than being in trains and being on buses. With that in mind, it is disappointing that the NTA has pushed back to 2027 a review that was meant to have been done in 2025, which looked at the possibility of adding more bus stops in Carlow. If we are not doing those reviews and putting more public transport in place for people, they will be in their cars and there will be an increase of accidents on the roads. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-17