Road Safety: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel I welcome the Minister of State. I acknowledge the presence in the Gallery of guests Barry Murphy and Ian Moran from Wexford. I welcome this debate on the important topic of road safety. I fully support the motion put forward by my colleagues. Last year, six people lost their lives on Wexford roads, with a nationwide total of 185. Every single one of those losses is a severe tragedy for the families, communities and all the people whose lives will never be the same after experiencing that loss. We in this Chamber can provide leadership in the whole area of road traffic and road safety. It is important that the measures we have presented this evening are brought to bear by the Government. I urge the Minister of State to take the specific proposals in the motions and the key points expressed in the debate back to the Government with a view to implementing revisions in the area of road safety. A specific issue of concern to me relates to the most dangerous junctions in my county of Wexford. One of them is the Clohamon crossing on the N80 coming from Bunclody to Enniscorthy. Another is Kyle Cross on the N11 between Enniscorthy and Wexford town. On the N25 from Wexford to New Ross, we have Larkin's Cross. Those three junctions account for a vast proportion of the road traffic accidents in County Wexford. They have repeatedly been the subject of surveys, proposals and consultations. Now we need to see action to make them far safer than they are today. Only three weeks ago, there was a serious collision at Larkin's Cross that came very close to resulting in yet another fatality on that stretch of road. I encourage the Department to look seriously at taking action for the communities in those three key areas. The motion includes a proposal to impose mandatory minimum sentencing and jail time on people who take it upon themselves, having been disqualified from driving either through accumulating penalty points or after a judge has taken them off the roads, to get back in a vehicle and drive. Section 38 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 made it a crime to drive when disqualified and introduced a penalty of a fine, which is now €5,000, and a sentence of a maximum of six months. We need to look at that again. A person caught driving after being taken off the roads must face a penalty of more than six months in prison. There cannot be a ceiling of six months' jail time, which, in practice, will result in a shorter sentence. This provision has not been reviewed since 1961. It must be reviewed now. We must take the opportunity to change that law and increase that penalty. There were not as many drivers on the roads in 1961 as there are now. Too many people have made the decision to get into their car after being strictly disqualified from driving. One in five disqualified drivers does not surrender his or her licence. There is work to be done by the Department, An Garda Síochána, the Courts Service and the Road Safety Authority to ensure there is no confusion about who is disqualified, that the licences of such drivers are not valid and that drivers who are the subject of a court conviction must surrender their licence on the day. We can no longer allow the current situation whereby people might not bring their licence to court and, having been disqualified, can carry that licence around in their pocket the following day. It just does not make any sense. The Road Safety Authority must have the modern technology it needs to ensure that the driver number of people who have been disqualified shows up for gardaí when they are out doing checkpoints on the side of the road. They should have instant access to the data about who actually is disqualified. It should never be the case that a garda is not sure what the information is telling them. If you are off the road, you are off the road and that is where the law has to be. I urge the Minister of State to take those points back. I support this motion from my colleagues this evening. --- 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