I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in today's debate. Central to all of this have to be the victims of road accidents. My own dear mother-in-law, Mary Fehilly, passed away around 18 months ago and it just left the family feeling hollow. What I have found every day since is that you very much tune into the radio when you hear of an accident up the country. Heretofore, you would hear an awful report of a life lost on the road and feel a bit disconnected from about, but now it very much connects you to those families and the tragedies that others are experiencing around the country. Central to all that we speak about today must be the families impacted by deaths and lifelong injuries on our roads. I sit on the transport committee and the Minister of State has been quite good to engage with us. I thank him for everything he is trying to do in the Department. He has been a very progressive and energetic Minister of State in taking on his portfolio. There are a few points I wish to specifically raise. Of course, we are talking about the automated speed-detection cameras. They are very effective on the M7 motorway near Birdhill as people leave Limerick heading for Dublin, a road I often travel. They detect people speeding and lead to penalty points and convictions. They also ensure that a lot of people slow right down when they see them. Unfortunately, when they reach the other side of those speed cameras, they tend to speed up again. That kind of technology needs a more nationwide roll-out, which I would certainly welcome. Recently, the Minister of State was very kind to meet with a delegation that I had brought here to Leinster House to discuss the N68 road, which leaves Ennis, heads out to west Clare and passes through a village called Darragh. In that vicinity there are many entrances and exits onto a national road. It might be called a national road, but it very much has local usage. It has a shop, local school, sports pitches and a litany of entrances into and out of houses and farmyards in that area. The Minister of State met Mairéad Collins, Michael Fitzgibbon and Kevin McNamee here in Leinster House. They brought maps and brought forward proposals. Since then, I understand that Clare County Council has also brought a submission to him. What is the status of that? There has been a €2 million allocation to that stretch of the N68 at Darragh for pavement overlay on the road. While all roads can do with a touch-up and resurfacing, this road could do with some of that money being syphoned over to road safety measures. I would love to hear something on that front. The N85 road, also in County Clare, is the main spine road that goes from Ennis into the north of the county. Every single day, thousands of people travel on that road, heading back to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are now Ireland's premier tourism site and there is a huge amount of pressure on that road, which was never built for that volume of traffic. The road has recently been highlighted by Councillor Shane Talty from Ennistymon and supported by Councillor Joe Killeen. Michael Vaughan, a prominent hotelier in Ennistymon, has also been flagging this. They really want to bring to the Minister of State's attention that, in spite of some significant events happening there next year, including the Irish Open and the Walker Cup, there is no plan to do something significant on this road. It is not fit for purpose at the moment, yet we next year expect the world and its mother to travel back through that north Clare road - the N85 - heading for golf events. The future mobility campus in Shannon in County Clare is testing a whole load of new technologies that could be used for road safety. The city of Aachen in Germany is a really good example where the entire Ford fleet of cars are geofenced, so if the speed limit is 60 km/h, the car is forced by geofencing to slow down to 60 km/h. No matter what the driver wants to do, he or she is compelled to stick to the speed limit that by technology. Indeed, some Irish people are pioneering this technology. At some time, I would love the Minister of State to come to the future mobility campus and embrace some of these new technologies. I wish him well in his Department. As I said, central to everything we do here have to be the victims of those awful accidents that are becoming far too frequent on our roads.

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