Councillor claims lower speed limits will not reduce road fatalities as 19 people lose their lives on Mayo roads in 2024

A member of Mayo County Council’s Roads SPC has claimed the impending reduction in speed limits will not reduce the number of fatalities on Mayo’s roads. 

Nineteen people died on the county’s roads in 2024 - more than the previous two years combined and the highest figure recorded in Mayo since 2001.

Provisional road traffic collision figures released by the Roads Safety Authority (RSA) show that 174 people died in 160 fatal collisions on the country’s roads in 2024. 

Mayo and Cork (both 19) recorded the joint-second-highest number of fatalities of any county, second only to Dublin with 23. Thirteen of the fatalities on Mayo’s roads occurred before July 28. 

Twelve people lost their lives on Mayo’s roads in 2023, an increase of seven from the five people who died in 2022. 

Many of the fatalities in Mayo were recorded on the N17, which runs from the southeast of the county as far as Charlestown. By October, 16 collisions had occurred on the road, with six people losing their lives. 

Describing the figures for his area as ‘alarmingly high’, Cllr Damien Ryan, Cathaoirleach of Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District, said the speed limit review ‘will do nothing to bring down those statistics’.

Bar a handful of exceptions, all national secondary roads in the country will be reduced from 100km/h to 80km/h, while all local and rural roads will be reduced from 80km/h to 60km/h. 

Cllr Ryan said he was not opposed to reducing speed limits, where necessary, on certain roads but said he was ‘totally disgusted’ with what he described as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to speed limits. 

“It should be done based on best practice, based on statistics, based on all the information that is available to us, with the guards, with the engineers, with the public representatives, with any of the vested interests sitting around the table. A one-size-fits-all around the country isn’t a solution,” the Ballinrobe-based Fianna Fáil representative told The Mayo News. 

A proposal to close eight junctions on the N17 has gone to public consultation. 

Average safety camera has been installed on the N17 north of Claremorris and between Lislackagh, Cuilmore and Swinford on the N5, which has been the scene of several accidents over the years. 

Cllr Ryan said he supported the installation of average speed cameras, describing them as ‘a hell of a lot more practical and a hell of a lot more effective.

Mayo TD, Paul Lawless, called for data to be made available to elected representatives to inform decisions on road safety. 

Speaking to The Mayo News Deputy Lawless said that policymakers ‘need to be able to get around a table and understand the nature of all those accidents.’

“To me, speed is the only thing that’s ever discussed by the RSA. We rarely ever talk about road quality and road conditions. There is significant issues around road safety in Mayo, issues that I’ve tried to solve at local level and I’ve been told we don’t have the money to do it. Meanwhile, the RSA is putting millions of euros into advertising campaigns,” said the Aontú TD.

The Knock-based representative said that the proposed Knock to Collooney bypass should be built to superior specifications to the existing N17, which he described as ‘one of the most dangerous roads in the country’. 

Local representatives have called for a dual carriageway to be installed on the N17, which is currently a single-carriageway road.  

“My understanding is that the TII plan to build the Knock to Collooney project to the one that is the same spec as the most dangerous road in the country,” said Deputy Lawless. 

“Where is the rationale, where is the justification for that? These are some of the common-sense things that I want to raise with the minister and I haven’t been able to do it because the Dáil hasn’t been sitting.”

Nationally, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of fatalities occurred between 4 pm and 8 pm. 

Seven in ten fatal road collisions occurred on roads with a speed limit of 80km/h or greater.