New 'red light' speed camera technology is being sought after in County Cork.

Cameras that register number plates and automatically award points will be installed along Dublin's busiest junctions and along bus lanes within the first half of 2025.

These automatic 'red-light' cameras will be used to catch motorists who break red lights, block yellow boxes or illegally use bus lanes, according to Dublin City Council and the National Transport Authority.

Cork Councillors have called for installations in their county, as they believe this technology would also be a great tool for monitoring rural roads.

A motorist speeding warning road sign on the Ring of Kerry tourist route

Independent Councillor for West Cork Finbarr Harrington told Newstalk Breakfast said that these cameras would be more effective than speed limit reductions or speed vans.

"What [speed vans] they do is they kind of catch a person on one split second of a moment when you’re driving along and you’re five, six kilometres over the speed limit.

"You're caught, you get your fine, you get your penalty points - and it does little for road safety.

“Whereas, as opposed to the new smart cameras, if you come to the camera and you’re speeding, you look at your speed and you realise, ‘I’ve got to slow down there, I’m going a little bit fast’.

“Then I suppose that drifts into your psyche when you’re driving, and it changes people’s attitudes towards speeding.”

Road safety

Cllr Harrington said the condition of rural roads also needs to be improved for the sake of road safety.

“We have to look at the whole thing in a complete sense, which in a lot of cases – and especially down here in West Cork – are the conditions of our roads,” he said.

“We would have long stretches of roads where they’d be covered in water, potholes where people have to veer across the road, we’d have bad turns that are covered with trees and vegetation.

“We have to address all these issues if we’re going to get serious about addressing road safety.”

Speed cameras

According to Mr Harrington, these speed cameras may not completely fix the issue but they would be the next best thing after a Garda van.

“That goes back to the resources and the money that’s being put into our Gardaí,” he said.

“Unfortunately, that has gone downhill big time, where they have effectively subcontracted that out to what we know as the GATSO vans or the Go Safe vans.

"These vans just appear randomly here and there.”

Mr Harrington said these vans often appear on roads with speed limits of under 50km an hour as opposed to those with higher and more dangerous limits.

Featured image: Average Speed cameras (PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo)