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FUNDING FOR UP to 100 new speed cameras will be made available as part of measures included in Budget 2025 announced on Tuesday.
A total of €9 million will be given to An Garda Síochána to improve traffic law enforcement and help to reduce the number of motorists speeding, with the aim of ultimately saving lives.
The funding equates to a 20% increase for GoSafe cameras when compared to last year, as 12 additional units will be rolled out by the end of the year.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has welcomed the funding and acknowledged that the number of people who have died on Irish roads have shocked the public. The Minister hopes the new funding will help to improve road safety.
“We know speed is a significant contributor to road deaths and so it’s vital we leverage technology to make our roads safer for everyone,” she said.
The location of static cameras will be based on fatality and serious injury collision data of particular areas, alongside speed data for individual roads. It is hoped this strategy will allow gardaí to determine the best place to situate the cameras.
Additionally, 75 extra road policing units will be created next year – on top of the 75 that were added to the road policing bureau this year.
“Every preventable road death is a tragedy, and together we need to continue to build on the good work already achieved by An Garda Síochána, as we collectively move toward the goal of reducing serious injuries and deaths on our roads,” McEntee said.
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Maybe spending the money on fixing the roads would make more sense, it’s the rural roads where the crashes are happening.
@Andrew Martin: rural doesn’t mean poor roads, from memory, most of the deaths have been on r and n roads. In general most roads in Ireland are good compared to NI.
There is such a high level of just poor driving, (bad road positioning, tail gating, breaking lights, phone use) that the vans don’t pick up, the only answer is Road Corp units out and about.
Also change the law to allow for easy submission of dash cam footage where there is dangerous driving
@Colm O’ Shea: Its fun to argue, but the reality is our rural and country roads (call them whatever you like) have been the same size for 100s of years. All of the roads between me and the motorway don’t fit two vehicles, let alone support the industries that plow them daily.
@Thesaltyurchin: not disagreeing but they are l roads, proportionally more accidents happen on r and n roads.
@Thesaltyurchin: planners allowing one off houses down glorified lanes for decades is the problem. In future concentrate new developments in villages a towns.
@Andrew Martin: So, if the road is poor, slow down.
@Andrew Martin: we don’t do that we let accidents happen then one day it becomes a black spot. That’s the way we do it and don’t dare lower insurance significantly for those with no points of course.
@Andrew Martin: ill drive as fast as l like I am a good driver. Only bad drivers crash not the speeders.
Invest in cameras that can detect people using phones when driving. Also start the roll out of average speed zones, too easy to see the speed traps, especially with it now been shown on Google maps. Increased fines and points too
@Paul Conlon: you must be an awesome neighbour
@Oh Mammy: I am, thanks
@Paul Conlon: a nazi for a neighbour, not nice
@Paul Conlon: deploy the at 5am, they would catch all the tradesmen with the shiny pickups and brand new vans at 150
@Oh Mammy: this chap has the right idea to ensure you continue to be his neighbour and not a statistic.
@Oh Mammy: The 137 neighbors in Ireland to date say Thank you! These are the 23 pedestrians, 54 drivers, 31 passengers, 3 e-scooters, 17 motorcyclists, 9 cyclists that have dies on our roads so far this year.
Speeding a contributing factor, it may not be the fault in all cases but an accident is very often a rare occurrence people being faced with a situation where physics (stopping distance) and physical reaction time prevent mitigation. All measures to reduce the portability of deaths and serious injury are welcome.
@jak: he is a very dangerous neighbour
@Oh Mammy: you must be an awful neighbour if you think speeding is acceptable
@Oh Mammy: and you must be a dire driver by putting up the location of Speed vans on Facebook and WhatsApp.
@Tommy: I use neither
@Donal McCarthy: I do not think its acceptable and, to the best of my ability, I do not speed.
How can you speed with the state the roads were left in by Cabbage Head in influenced government???
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: Easy. You’ll figure it out.
@Vince Cable: Pray tell me how!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: cabbage head was in a state of sleepiness at the time and is now fully in his senses so lessons learned like the bike shed dozziness or backhanders applied there as usual.
Speed cameras haven’t work in the sense of bringing down road deaths. So investing in more is plan and simple stupid. It turns out the RSA can not has not been able to gather data as to where and why road accidents are happening.
@Jimmy Donovan: as long as people are on their phones while driving, tailgating, taking risks there will be road deaths…… Speed cameras in hot spots will reduce the number of people speeding in that area and save lives. They’re there to change behaviors….. You can’t quantify how many lives they’ve saved because the crashes they’ve prevented obviously haven’t happened…… To argue that road deaths haven’t come down because of them is nonsense because driving behaviors have worsened over the past decade IMO
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: Well the camera vans operating near me in Dublin are literally stationed at two points were the speed drops 10kph briefly, thousands of lives saved there I’d imagine.
@Freda Peeple: Yeah theres is always the few sneaky cameras located in ridiculous locations…. I’m talking about the majority of them
@Freda Peeple: we are talking about static cams .
The vans are only a money making gimmick.
Based on the sites to which they are deployed, the majority in Dublin are just mobile tax collection units, nothing less.
Just incredible looking at the level of denial in the comments already about speeding. This really does seem to be our version of America’s attitude to guns…
@Vincent Frideo: speed is just one element but the standard of driving for some is horrific. People swinging across lanes with no indication, phone use in 201+ cars, no peripheral awareness of other road users, stopping on a dual carriage way to turn left instead of using the bus lane to pull in safely, running straight through red lights and also not using appropriate speed.
Driving into Dublin everyday, I know there are approx 5 junctions where if I’m first in line, I’ll give it an extra 2 seconds before moving off to allow for the inevitable car breaking the light.
@Colm O’ Shea: I agree that standard has definitely dropped, I too drive major roads to Dublin. And the number of drivers who at the last minute decide to get into the correct lane is crazy. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
Also, certain drivers shouldn’t be driving on the roads, no display of l or N plates, yet they drive very old cars, in centre lane at about 40 km at rush hour, when you pass them they are looking fixed straight ahead.
No awareness of the tailbacks.
How these got their tests beyond me. So, it causes other drivers to overtake.
Same on large roundabouts, drivers blocking every exit in the wrong lanes.
We need better instructors and better testing times before the bad habits set in.
@Vincent Frideo: Last time we checked all the road death weren’t linked only to speed but to poor driving standards on rural roads.
@Alex: we checked Facebook?
@jak: did that sound better in your head? Is there really a part of you that doesn’t understand that a faster car is more likely to make an accident more serious or more likely?
@Colm OShea: I think the issue is that speeding makes every one of the reckless habits you (very much correctly) cite as issues even worse.
So, not really “funding for Gardaí” as much as it is partial funding for Gardaí and more money to go safe, a private company.
@James Groden: its 100% going to GoSafe, the Gardai don’t have the time or resources for more roads policing. Its PEOPLE they need, not money. Minister would be far bettter off using that money to increase the Garda salary, then it might be more lucrative for people to join – which they could then in turn use to police the roads.
Scrap the speed vans. Always parked in same places that everyone knows and slow down for briefly. Invest in hidden cameras, and dedicated traffic police. Increase fines and points. Enforce bans and payments. And don’t blame roads, bad roads never killed anyone, only bad drivers
More speed vans on 2-way main roads (especially with right hand turn offs) or busy back roads – great idea. Speed vans on motorways or most dual carriageway situations – money making scam.
Here we go again – road deaths have increased in the last few years, due to a lack of policing, and drivers getting used to getting away with poor driving, and the government can’t recruit more Gardaí. What is a government to do? What they’ve decided to do is to lower speed limits below what is sensible (60km/h coming on nearly all rural roads shortly), and then put a load of speed vans on them – it won’t help lower road deaths, as most people who die in collisions are either vastly exceeding existing limits or, in the majority of cases, just driving badly/aggressively/lazily. What lowering the limits while rolling out more speed vans will accomplish is a huge increase in lack of compliance with speed limits, and an increasing lack of respect amongst the public for all speed (cont’d)
limits, as most will not match the road conditions.
Additionally, a lot of experienced drivers who will continue to choose safe, sensible speeds for the road conditions will get hit with fines and points where their driving was previously perfectly legal. The only reason this is happening is because the Government/Garda/RSA find real road policing too difficult/expensive, so they continue with the massive emphasis on speed/speeding, because it’s easy to measure, cheaper, and you can look like you’re doing something, when in reality, you’re just gathering statistics on non-compliance with a view to holding more National Slow Down Days™, issuing press releases about how many drivers were “caught speeding” and how they’re all the cause of all road deaths (but correlation is not causation).
@Stephen Wallis: Yes, look at the courts every week. Someone is there already having been banned many times and yet still driving.
There are not enough guards it’s that simple.
More money to a private company not registered in Ireland
Government answer to everything- get more money from citizens.
Like all drivers I see dangerous situations regularly while driving and 9 times out of ten it’s not speed that is the issue.
Another blatant money grab under a virtue signaling banner..
I don’t have an issue with speed cameras in general but they are placing them in places where they shouldn’t be. For example they always put them on climbing lanes where it’s actually safe to overtake. The amount of cars that speed up when they see a climbing lane and then slow down at the end of the climbing lane is nuts. On my trip this morning a truck did it. Pulled into the climbing lane, didn’t overtake anyone and pulled back in.
Sometimes a person might have to go slightly over the speed limit to overtake safely and in my opinion that shouldn’t be punished.
Here’s an idea, make the safest roads free, ie, motorways
@Spartacus Ireland: we must charge tolls and send the funds abroad like the m50 its the Irish way.
This 30min RP at the start of a shift is a load of codswallap, i know several dozen Gardai and after asking, none of them have ever done it. The Superintendents are just plámásing the Minister with what she wants to hear, so she can look good in public. They haven’t got the time OR the vehicles to be doing such nonsense, according to most of them. Go figure….. its all PR spout from the Minister.
Speed cameras on motorways in the UK worked well (granted some 20 years ago). commuter speed limit of 60mph constantly being check by overhead cameras, also the requirement to be a certain distance, etc. something similar on the last 50km into our cities could be effective during heavy traffic.
Need them badly in the back roads, there’s literally zero police presence there… honestly getting sick of boy racere in cars and bikes doing 150kmph on roads full of blind bends and corners where people are frequently walking along as well as riders.
@Kieran Menon: horse riders*
Just back from a week in France. Speed cameras everywhere, and saw nobody (literally) speeding. I think the LED village speed advisory signs have them too. Anyway, very effective.
And they’ll out the new ones in all the wrong places.
30 kilometres per hour limit on strand road Sandymount to protect pedestrians was ignored so they put in ramps and amazingly cars now drive at 30. More worried about damaging their cars than killing pedestrians. Spray Paint speed traps would work.
@thomas molloy: Nobody cares, theres a big wide world outside Sandymount.
The issue here is more than not enough Garda or cameras or speed or road condition or driver ability, it’s all of the above. I see people driving on a road near me that is 100km, some look like they are doing about 110/115 maybe more but the catch is the road is not suitable for 100km it should be 80km at most. I rarely see Garda on it and never see speed vans on it and yet there are crashes on it about 3 days a week.
If the road was upgraded a bit or the speed limit dropped or regular Garda patrols or speed vans maybe it would help but none of that deals with the individual driver that believes they can handle the road at faster than limit speeds or the driver messing on phone or simply the driver distracted by the kids in the back. Work is needed on every aspect of road use.
Donegal needs them everywhere
I hope they only roll them out on level roads, I wouldn’t like to see them rolling away!
I live beside the N5 in Roscommon. There’s a spot just 300yds up the road that has been used for years by the camera van and he’s there very regular. It still has’nt slowed the traffic, particularly at the weekends. The speed of some vehicles is horrific. I’ve been driving 40+ years and could make a reasonable guess and I’d say 150kph or more is relatively common. The bikes in particular are frightening, mostly on a Sunday. I don’t know what the answer is.
It should be 75 static cams and 25 new van .
The use of static cams in slowing traffic at blackspots has been proven for the last 20 years .
Yet again we are playing catch up
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