Prayer for victims as crash toll rises

Lives lost and lives forever changed by road traffic crashes were remembered at events throughout the country yesterday.

A teddy bear with the name Mollie was placed on the altar during a remembrance ceremony in Fermoy, Co Cork.

Mollie was an unborn baby girl who died when her heavily pregnant mother, Mary Enright, 28, from Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, died in a collision near Bansha, Co Tipperary, in March 2012. Ms Enright’s father, David Walsh, successfully campaigned to have Mollie placed on the register of road traffic deaths. He said his daughter had just married, and Mollie was her first child.

“Today is the first day an unborn child has been recognised in the road traffic deaths. She was included in the 2012 figures this year so it took us four years to get it done,”said Mr Walsh.

“I always said we buried two people. Mary was 32 weeks’ pregnant and Mollie died as a result of the road crash,” said Mr Walsh, a member of the PARC Road Safety Group.

Mr Walsh joined the group after his daughter’s death but, he said, it was a club that no parent wanted to join.

He and his daughter were involved in a business and he still missed her terribly.

“At this stage, four years later, maybe Mary would have had two more children, so that is five missing in a circle. It is a huge loss.”

There have been 166 road deaths in the State so far this year, compared to 142 deaths until the end of November last year, a development described by the Road Safety Authority as “very worrying”.

Another death occurred on the country’s roads yesterday, on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, when memorial events were held all over the country.

One woman died and another woman was seriously injured when they fell out of a moving van in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The women, both in their early 20s, were discovered on the side of the road at the Barna Rd/Moycullen Rd junction in Co Galway at about 2.30am. It is believed that the van they were travelling in was not involved a collision.

The women received medical assistance at the scene before being taken to University Hospital Galway.

One of the women was later pronounced dead, and a post mortem is to be arranged. The second woman remains in a stable condition in hospital.

RSA chief executive Moyagh Murdock said more lives have been lost on the roads this year compared to last year, which was a very worrying development.