Reducing speed limits would be a “knee jerk reaction” to rising road fatalities, Michael Healy Rae has said. 

Yesterday, Chief Executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland promised new time-over-distance speed cameras will be rolled out nationally. 

Time-over-distance speed cameras use data from each other to calculate whether a driver was speeding in between the two cameras - unlike a traditional speed camera, which can only tell if a car is going over the limit the moment it passes it. 

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Deputy Healy Rae said he opposed time-over-distance speed cameras and any attempts to reduce speed limits. 

“It might come as a big surprise to people… that the reality that’s coming very near is that 100 kmph will become 80, 80 will go to 60 and 60 will go to 40,” he said. 

“The Government is shelving and hiding a report from Transport Infrastructure Ireland which has stated that reduced speed limits in Ireland is going to cost €3.8 billion over a 30-year-period.”

A member of An Garda Siochana places flowers given by the public near the scene of the crash in the Windmill Knockbulloge area of Cashel, Co. Tipperary. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov / © RollingNews.ie

Last year, 184 people died in road traffic collisions - significantly more than the 155 who died in 2022. 

The Government has promised new legislation to enhance road safety and speed limit reductions are expected to form part of the bill. 

Deputy Healy Rae described himself as an “advocate for road safety” but said such a measure would not be a “magic answer” to reducing the number of fatalities. 

“This knee jerk reaction by the Government of drastically reducing the speed limits is not the answer,” he said. 

“There are other issues that they should be looking at. 

“Such as making our roads safer by doing more removal of dangerous junctions, cutting the hedges on the roads, taking the water off the roads,” he said. 

“Making our roads a safer place to be and it is not just through speed reduction that we will do that.”

So far, 2024 has proved a slightly less perilous year on Irish roads than 2023; 28  people have died, three less than in the same period last year.

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Main image: Michael Healy-Rae addressing media on the plinth outside Leinster House. Image: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie