I am here with my wife, Kathleen, and some other families who have lost loved ones as a result of incidents at road works in Ireland. We have been frustrated by officials of national and local authorities in our efforts to get justice for our late daughter, Ashling, and stop similar preventable serious and fatal accidents. We are shocked by the lack of common decency, respect and dignity shown to our daughter by these same officials in their pursuit of self-preservation. We have been betrayed by our Government's culture of cronyism that sustains and nurtures non-accountability. Our Government has reneged on its constitutional obligation to cherish each citizen equally and to value life beyond any other consideration. Our experience from Irish Ministers, Departments and senior civil servants is that the weak and the dead can be sacrificed to preserve the current regime of self-regulation. Self-regulation in these cases has resulted in deaths.
Our hope and purpose is that the intervention from Europe will result in road accidents being investigated in a professional, basic engineering road standard, unbiased and transparent manner. This means that local authorities do not participate in this independent investigation although they can conduct their own investigation. The end purpose of the independent investigation would be to identify causes, primary and contributory, and ensure that mistakes or non-compliances are not repeated; that negligence or non-compliance with safety regulations should be dealt with without exception in the courts.
The topics for discussion include road infrastructure, lack of safety checks, non-compliance with Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government standards and guidelines, lack of accountability and the failure of Government bodies to act effectively when incidents occur. Mr. Farren spoke on the third, fourth and fifth points; I will address the first and second.
I refer to road infrastructure safety, including the use of dense bitumen macadam, DBM, as a final road surface. Dense bitumen macadam base course is designed and approved as an under-surface bituminous construction material that gives the road its strength and shape. It is designed to withstand downward top loading and is never intended or designed to create friction between vehicle tyres and itself. It is manufactured from a softer stone and as a result it smoothes and polishes if it is subject to vehicle traffic wear. The National Roads Authority's directives clearly preclude the use of DBM base or binder course as a running surface and the authority has conveyed in writing that it has not carried out any test on this material to determine its suitability for public use even under severe speed restrictions. There is a long-standing requirement to have this material covered or dressed with an approved finished final running layer. This requirement is widely ignored throughout Ireland. This fact was given in sworn evidence by the Cork county manager in the Circuit Court and the High Court.
These unsafe practices are very often made worse by local authorities actually putting the permanent road line-markings on to the unapproved DBM base course. This conveys to the unsuspecting road user that this is the final, approved, designed for purpose and tested road surface. When this smooth polished surface is wet it becomes lethal. Its smooth surface contains voids which retain water and causes aqua-planing. The only report about road accidents prior to 2006 were generated by the local authorities and hence the truth about road surfaces was never identified and accountability for unsafe road conditions was concealed. In the five years since Ashling died, it is beyond doubt that the Departments of Transport, Justice and Law Reform and Environment, Heritage and Local Government have chosen to renege on responsibility and to deny accountability.
There are three main aspects to safe passage on Irish roads: driver, vehicle, and road or carriage way. In Ashling's case the first and second were proven not to be at fault. We believe No. 3 is the primary cause of this fatal accident and countless others. With regard to the driver, Ireland has stringent regulations for driver certification. Drivers must pass strict practical and theory tests to obtain a licence to drive a vehicle in a public place and there are highly regulated low levels of permitted blood alcohol levels, and so on. With regard to the vehicle, Irish vehicle road worthiness tests are among the strictest in Europe. With regard to road surface, despite having a very high profile, our Road Safety Authority conveniently has no remit over the safety of the road. The RSA’s role is in public safety awareness and the safety of road vehicles and it has achieved progress in these areas. However, it is embracing only part of the criteria necessary to safeguard safe passage on Ireland’s roads. The RSA gives a false sense of security such that if a driver complies with all the safety regulations and his or her vehicle is also compliant, then he or she is in a safe environment when using the country’s roads. Although the two aforementioned factors are imperative to a user’s safety, they become irrelevant if the vehicle travels on an unregulated, unapproved, untested and substandard road surface.
I refer to the lack of accountability for and the need for commitment to the safety of road works. In practice, no one oversees safety at a local authority road works site. Although the National Roads Authority funds all primary and secondary road maintenance and upgrade projects, it does not follow up with inspections on safety or quality. It does not visit sites to verify payment when stage payments are applied for by the local authority. The NRA issues guidelines, directives, specifications on quality and safety but these are ignored throughout the country on a daily basis. The local authorities disregard the NRA rules in the knowledge that they enjoy immunity from prosecution should these omissions cause a fatality. This immunity may not be written in law but it most definitely exists.
The Health and Safety Authority is the only independent organisation prepared to inspect the safety practices of local authorities on road maintenance contracts. However, the local authorities can eliminate this threat to safety checks by simply disbanding the workforce on the works site. They can withdraw labour and plant and leave the road unsafe. As a result, these sites do not meet the description of a worksite and hence a safety inspection which could benefit the workers and the public is eliminated. In our case and Mr. Farren's case, the local authorities are completely resistant to such checks. They believe they are exempt from fulfilling a duty of care to their own workforce or to anyone who is legally inside the parameters of these works areas.
I refer to the fatal road traffic accident of Aisling Gallagher on 22 December 2004. On 22 December 2004 in the course of an 80 km journey, our daughter Aisling unknowingly encountered 1.8 km of DBM, dense bitumen macadam, base course. The final road markings, yellow hard shoulder dashed lines and white centre lines, were laid on this base course, lending a false sense of security to the effect that the road was finished with an approved surface. There was no signage to indicate that the surface was non-standard and that a much lower permitted speed should have been adopted to compensate for the lack of safety, i.e., the skid resistance of the particular road surface. The only sign relating to speed was the then 60 mph national speed limit sign. This unrestricted speed limit together with new road markings just weeks in place on a new road surface indicated that this stretch of road was complete.
After rounding a narrow bend, she encountered a car stopped turning right. We believe she applied her brakes and her vehicle inexplicably crossed over the white line into the path of an oncoming lorry. Her vehicle was pushed backwards for 30 m, more than 98 ft, without either vehicle leaving a tyre mark on the wet glass-like surface. Aisling had neither alcohol nor drugs in her system. Her vehicle had a recent road worthiness certificate. The surface she was travelling on at the time of her death was not designed nor approved to be traversed at any speed regardless of how slow.
When we travelled this same stretch of road the following day, 23 December, to bring Aisling's remains home from the morgue, we travelled through a maze of warning signs and flashing lights. Warning signs indicating "Slow Down" and "Caution: Slippery Surface" were erected throughout the 1.8 km works area. Clearly, Mayo County Council was fully aware of what should have been in place but the guarantee of immunity meant it could ignore safety until an innocent citizen paid with her life for the council's incompetence and the cosy relationship that exists between local authorities and all relevant law enforcement agencies.
The Health and Safety Authority conducted a two-year investigation into the road surface and issued a comprehensive report. The local authority has succeeded in its efforts to have this report excluded from Aisling's inquest. We must go to the High Court to have this decision reviewed. The Director of Public Prosecutions is yet to advise.
The funding body, the National Roads Authority, had paid out the full amount to Mayo County Council for the 1.8 km contract without one site inspection. It was unaware of the road surface being unfinished at the fatal accident scene in December 2004. Had the NRA not funded this ill-managed project resulting in no work been carried out on this stretch of the N59, it is our belief that Aisling would be alive today. The guidelines and directives from the NRA which accompanied the funding should have insured that this booby trap would never exist, but Mayo County Council either did not make itself aware of the guidelines or chose to ignore them. The Cork county manager's District Court and High Court evidence confirms that this unsafe practice is widespread throughout Ireland. We believe it has cost countless lives.
Safety warning signs, although still inadequate, were only put in place after the accident. Despite this non-standard and unapproved surface being in place from September 2004 until mid March 2005, Mayo County Council did not erect one sign to inform the user that the surface was temporary. Despite direct requests by Aisling's parents to the county manager, the council refused to introduce cautionary speed restriction. This disregards and ignores the NRA's guidelines, directives and specifications and it highlights the lack of a safety check sheet.
The local authorities are not answerable to any Department or Minister in respect of safety or work practices at roadwork sites. This situation allows for responsibility and accountability to be lost. It also helps to frustrate families who seek answers or justice because they are directed back to the body they are making the complaint against. Our purpose is that we would prevent the same fate befalling any other victim and grief attached to any other family. The recurrence of another fatal avoidable road accident is rather possible given the current culture of irresponsibility and unaccountability in Ireland. We do not seek to rewrite the book of guidelines or regulations. We simply call for the guidelines, directions and regulation in place to be enforced. This is our purpose.
