The European Parliament’s Petitions Committee is to begin investigating the procedures used by Irish local authorities for maintaining and resurfacing non-national roads around the country.
Their investigation stems from a petition submitted by Sean Farren whose daughter Sinead died after her car went out of control on a section of road undergoing resurfacing work that was left unfinished near Culdaff in Co Donegal in June 2001.
Speaking in Brussels Mr Farren said he hoped that there would be a positive outcome to the EU's investigation.
"We have been campaigning for a long time now. We want things to change and we don't want other families to go through the pain and suffering that we and others like us have done," he said.
"We have gone the national route and received no support from the Government whose attitude has been to deny responsibility yet fail to hold local authorities to account."
"County managers across Ireland are not accountable it seems and we have been forced to come to the EU to seek accountability and force a change in procedures in Ireland. Already we have received support from the European Commission, the Chair of the Petitions Committee and a number of MEPs," he added.
Speaking today, Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins said the state of non-national roads across Ireland were leading to unnecessary fatalities and injuries.
"There are significant problems with the design of these roads, the speed limits in use, and the maintenance procedures," he said.
"The most worrying is that local authorities are leaving a preparatory layer of road surface material as a final layer in many cases. This means that drivers have little or no resistance when braking on this section of road. This dramatically increases the possibility of road deaths and injuries.
"Another procedure that many of us will be familiar with is the practice of loose chippings, many road works sites are not being swept of loose chippings before cars start to use the road again and in a lot of places they are poorly signed meaning that many of us come across sections of road that are extremely
dangerous without warning," he said.
Mr Higgins called on the Government to implement a national audit of all non-national roads as a matter of urgency.