Serial crashes at high-risk locations on the State’s roads are adding unnecessary deaths to the annual toll of road fatalities.
That is according to the Irish Road Victims Association which has called for councils to be obliged to make safe within a defined time frame known, high-risk crash locations.
The association, a national charity supporting those affected by road traffic collisions, said “lives continue to be lost and families continue to be affected”.
President of the association Donna Price, whose son Darren was killed in a collision, told TDs and Senators “the evidence is clear, the causes are known, and the opportunity to intervene exists. What is required now is timely, decisive action”.
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“Where a risk is known, inaction should not be an option,” she said.
Addressing the Oireachtas Transport Committee on Wednesday, Price also called for reform of the State’s processes following a fatal crash, including aspects of the coroners’ courts which establish cause of death.
Price said in many cases families were not given copies of forensic evidence reports compiled by the Garda and were “on the periphery of the process”. She said prosecutions were often “prolonged” while the Director of Public Prosecutions considered the evidence, and the bereaved were forced to “navigate the complex legal, medical, and State systems”.
She said many individuals and families were, as a result, re-traumatised by their experience in a coroner’s court.
Price called for “the establishment of a structured, Government-led, post-incident investigation and family support framework; strengthened liaison services for bereaved families; enforceable statutory obligations in respect of road infrastructure; and robust speed control and penalty regimes designed to meaningfully influence driver behaviour.”
“In particular, where collision data or engineering assessment identifies a known high-risk location, there should be a clear statutory obligation on the relevant authority to intervene within a defined time frame, with appropriate oversight and consequences where such risks are not addressed,” she said.
Price said the introduction of a road safety commissioner would help to implement the National Road Safety Strategy, because authority for change was spread across several Government departments.
Price said the Road Safety Authority, of which she was previously a board member, was held by the public as having responsibility for the strategy, but in fact it was a Government strategy, implemented by various departments.
Richard Stables, information and support manager with Headway Ireland, a national organisation providing community-based rehabilitation services to people living with acquired brain injury, said “approximately one fifth of our caseload” arises directly from road traffic incidents.
“Behind that figure are people living with traumatic brain injury. These are individuals who may never return to work, who may lose their independence, their relationships, and in many cases, key aspects of their personality. Families often describe the experience not simply as survival, but as a different kind of loss.
“As one family member told us, ‘I sometimes think it would have been better if he hadn’t survived.’ Another said, there are worse things than death.”
Committee chairman Michael Murphy said the Committee, in the course of its deliberations, had heard numbers in the Garda Road Policing unit had declined to just over 600 in 2025, from more than 1,000 15 years earlier.
He also said the Committee expected to hear evidence from the Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly and Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien in coming sessions and would make a report with “short and long-term actionable recommendations” to save lives and serious injuries on the roads.
