Government looking at additional measures to monitor motorways in wake of M9 crash

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien has said that the government is looking at ways in which to put additional monitoring in place on motorways to allow for early warning of incidents such as the fatal crash on the M9 which involved driving the wrong way on the motorway.

“We are looking at how we can put additional monitoring in place on our motorways for early warning. This type of behaviour is completely and utterly unacceptable,” he told Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show.

“It's reprehensible as well, that we have mainly young men, a very small proportion, actually acting in such an irresponsible way, that actually putting their lives and other lives at danger.

“I've been working for a number of months on this. I met the Garda Commissioner a number of months ago, particularly in the area of pursuit and protecting Gardaí from prosecution.

“We had about 12 cases of charges being brought, which I think is crazy in itself, to be honest with you, where the Gardaí in the performance of his or her duty may actually be charged or indeed prosecuted.”

The Minister said that the Department of Justice had just concluded some work on that issue in the last week.

“I intend to bring forward amendments in the Road Traffic Bill in this quarter, and certainly have it in by the end of the year to protect Gardaí from that type of situation occurring to them, where they would be charged or indeed prosecuted in the pursuit of their duty. That's something that shouldn't happen.

“I've said that publicly before. We are going to address it.”

The possibility of further strengthening existing legislation was also being examined, he said.

“It's important that we protect our Gardaí and that we ensure that they can go about their job and do their job and aren't fearful of prosecution. It's not right that that is the case. It's a very small number of cases, but it's still not right that it's there. And we will address it.”

Early detection and using the system for monitoring motorways would be discussed with a meeting of agencies on Friday, said O’Brien.

“Anything that we can do there, that we'll do. The state can do so much in relation to physical infrastructure, in relation to laws, but I think as well there needs to be a serious national discussion and a discussion in households on this as well, where we have young people, mainly young people being engaged in this type of behaviour.

"We've seen, tragically, lives lost, severe injuries that have happened there. And we can do something about that ourselves. And as society, we need to do something about that. The social media companies as well have a major responsibility in this regard.”

Social media companies acted with impunity, he said. It was despicable that TikTok had refused to come before an Oireachtas Committee.

“There are many different stakeholders in this, we can all do things that will help in this regard. Fundamentally though, it is about individuals' behaviour too.

“There's an education piece there. There's also a justice element to that in relation to youth diversion projects, which are really, really important. But there seems to be a type of machismo come into this whole thing of, speeding cars, putting this up on social media, with soundtracks on it, being shared all the way across like it's a badge of honour

“There are a small number of cases, but you see how devastating the impact of that can be. And it needs to stop. So we will be changing the law in relation to pursuit. That will happen," he said.