Sir, – Sarah Swift points out (Letters, February 18th) that 80 per cent of roads in Munich have a 30 km/h speed limit.
Here Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Paschal Donohoe, recently announced that the Government supports the principle of Sinn Féin’s proposal for a mandatory 20km/h speed limit for residential areas but that an “option” of such a lower speed limit is what will be introduced.
He also said that his department has been actively “encouraging” local authorities to apply the 30km/h special speed limit, also optional, which has been on our statute books since 2004.
Last year, in response to Roseann Brennan’s heroic Jake’s Legacy campaign, the Minister surveyed all local authorities and confirmed that, over the past decade, just 1.5 per cent of our housing estates have had a 30km/h speed limit imposed.
If that staggering level of optional productivity is maintained, Irish local authorities will approach Munich’s implementation level of 80 per cent roughly 500 years from now, give or take a decade or two. – Yours, etc, SIMON COMER, Rahoon Galway.