Road Deaths: 'The sergeant replied: ‘I’m afraid she is gone.’ We were all so heartbroken'

With the grim death toll on the roads at record levels, Neil Michael talks to those directly impacted as concerns grow over a worsening trend. Joseph Herlihy relives the unbearable moment he found out his daughter Joanne died in a car crash on her way home from work 

A stone cross memorial near the spot where Joanne Herlihy died on the N72 near Mallow, Co Cork, in 2011. Picture: Neil Michael

There are three words etched on Joseph Herlihy’s heart - “She is gone.” 

Spoken by a garda at the scene of the crash in which his daughter Joanne died on November 13, 2011, the memory of the moment they were uttered still brings tears to his eyes.