Cork fire brigade attended 16 N40 incidents last year

Cork City Fire Brigade attended 16 road traffic incidents on the N40/South Ring Rd last year, as a councillor has called for more transparent information on collisions.

Green Party councillor Dan Boyle asked at yesterday’s meeting of the local authority for the most recently available annual figures for road traffic incidents on the ring road, noting the extent to which this council’s emergency services have been called upon to respond.

Noel Murtagh, acting director of local area development and operations, said the council had only limited data in this regard.

“Data held by Cork City Fire Brigade refers only to incidents where the brigade was mobilised. A more accurate figure may be available from An Garda Síochána or TII [Transport Infrastructure Ireland],” he told Mr Boyle.

Mr Murtagh said the most recent figures Cork City Fire Brigade have related to last year, and that the service responded to 16 incidents along the ring road in 2025.

“The figure of 16 represents incidents within the extent of the N40 from Dunkettle to Curraheen, and are only for road traffic incidents on the N40/Southern Ring Rd,” he said.

Mr Boyle told The Echo more data is required to assess the problem: “The number of vehicle collisions on the Southern Ring Rd/N40 are numerous and are believed to be increasing.

“The difficulty is no open public means of collecting, presenting, and analysing this information. Without this information, it becomes impossible to bring about better safety standards, and we are doomed to repeats these collisions again and again,” he said.