Road safety summit to be held as 10 die
A spokesman for Minister Brennan he will also be asking Justice Minister Michael McDowell to deploy more gardaí on weekend traffic duty and has requested the Medical Bureau on Road Safety to examine if there are any specific trends in relation to the high level of accidents.
The death toll on Irish roads this year has risen to 272, an increase of 39 on the same period in 2003.
A summit, which will be attended by senior Gardaí and officials of the National Safety Council, will take place in advance of a new three-year National Road Safety Strategy which is due to be published later this month.
In the worst accident, three people died following a head-on collision in north Tipperary early yesterday morning. Two Belarussian men travelling in one car and a 19-year-old local woman in the other vehicle, died when the crash happened at Drom, between Templemore and Borrisoleigh, shortly before 3.40am. Three other people were taken to Nenagh Hospital. Their injuries were described as not life-threatening.
Local people believe that fog patches in the area may have caused the crash which took place on a straight stretch of road which has no history of being an accident blackspot.
A 22-year-old French motorcyclist died after he hit a tree in North Mall in Cork city at 8.30pm on Saturday. His male pillion passenger, another French national, was injured in the incident. The dead man was yesterday named as Julien Alain Trichet from Saint Pazanne, near Nantes.
James Mangan (64) from Ballycoolan, Stradbally, Co Laois, died in Beaumont Hospital after his car collided with a coach a short distance from his home at 4.20pm on Saturday.
Two people died less than two hours later when a car and motorcycle crashed on the main Enniscorthy-Bunclody road in Co Wexford. The dead were named as Ita Roche (59), from Tombrick, Enniscorthy and Noel Quigley (35), of, Crefogue, Enniscorthy.
Nigel McSharry (23) from Old Bundoran Road, Sligo died after his car struck a concrete fence at 10.40am yesterday near Boyle in Co Roscommon.
Meanwhile, two cyclists died in separate accidents yesterday afternoon.
A man in his 40s was killed after he was struck by a lorry near Askeaton in Co Limerick. The accident happened on the main Limerick-Adare road at 3.15pm.
A 50-year-old cyclist from Togher in Cork city died after he was struck by a car.
The accident happened on the main Cork-Youghal road, near Midleton, at 1.45pm. He was rushed to Cork University Hospital, but died a short time later.
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