Default speed limits in urban areas were set to be reduced to 30km/h nationally

Standing near his car in the car park outside the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre Friday, Sukhwinder Singh says he thinks it’s a good idea to lower speed limits.

The car park was lined with cars pulling in and out of row after row of free parking. It has started to sputter rain.

That had been the plan: a national shift to lower speed limits. And Singh says he thought it sounded like a good idea, “For everybody's safety anyways."

The 2020 programme for government pledged to “Review and reduce speed limits”.

Reductions to default speed limits were then put into law as part of the Traffic Road Act 2024.

The first phase of rolling these out came into effect 7 February: lowering the default speed limit on many rural local roads from 80 km/h to 60 km/h.

Then, under a roadmap outlined by the Department of Transport, a second phase was to follow: reducing the default speed limit in urban core areas from 50 km/h to 30 km/h by 30 June.

In the final phase of the changes, councils would deal with special circumstances like schools and sports clubs.

But Green Party Councillor David Healy says that even earlier this year, there were signs that something was off with this plan and timeline.

“You know, everybody from around February was saying, ‘Well, where are these guidelines if we're going to have this done by June?’” Healy said. “By April, everybody was saying, ‘Well, we're not making the June deadline, are we?’”

The issue is a national one. The plan had been to introduce a default speed limit of 30 km/h nationally in built-up and urban areas, “it was subsequently recognised that this would be difficult to achieve, as there is presently no definition of an urban area in legislation for the purpose of setting speed limits”, a spokesperson for the Department of Transport said.

“To introduce a default speed limit of 30km/h in all urban areas would necessitate updated legislation, which would take time,” the DOT spokesperson said. So, instead, they came up with a different plan.

They didn’t meet the deadline

At a meeting on 26 June of the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart/ Castleknock/Ongar Operations Area Committee, Fingal senior executive engineer James Culhane presented an update from the Department of Transport, which stated the plan "has now changed".

Not only has the 30 June deadline changed, the policy has.

With the change on rural roads from a default of 80 km/h to 60 km/h, “no special speed limit by-laws were required”, Culhane said.

Instead of taking the same approach for reducing the default from 50km/h to 30km/h for urban cores, the government has changed tack, he said.

Now the plan is that the council will have to identify an “urban speed limit zone”.

Within that, they’d have to identify which part is the “urban core”, and set the speed limit there at 30km/h. Then they’d have to set other speed limits – like for arterial roads, or roads going past schools.

Then they’d have to implement these different new speed limits via the special speed limit by-law process.

Then do workshops with council area committees, publish the proposed changes for public consultation, finalise the maps of speed limits and then go through the formal by-law-making process, he said.

It’s all going to be more complicated, take longer, and fall on councils to make the change.

Councils are now waiting for the Department of Transport to produce a circular containing detailed instructions on how to do all this, according to the presentation.

Plus, for now, after missing the 30 June deadline, the staff also relayed from the Department of Transport that no new target date has been set.

“Gobsmacked”

After Culhane finished his presentation at the area committee meeting, councillors said they were surprised.

“I was kind of scratching my head a little bit,” said Sinn Féin Councillor Angela Donnelly. “Um, it's totally changed from what we were told.”

"It’s just appalling to actually send out those instructions last year and then just totally flip it and turn it on its head,” she said.

Aontú Councillor Ellen Troy said she agreed with Donnelly, and echoed her confusion, saying she didn’t fully understand the "special speed limit" process.

Culhane, the engineer, said that, basically rather than the government lowering the default urban speed nationally, the council staff will now review the entire county.

“We have to now assess each town, village or built up area across the county,” said Culhane. “So there's a good few to go through there.”

Any changes to speed limits will need to be approved by the councillors on a case-by-case basis. If they approve the change, it will then be published for public consultation, before going back to the full council for approval.

But that’s the broad strokes. To actually do this, the council will need specific rules set by the Department of Transport in a “circular”.

Later on the phone, Healy, the Green Party councillor , said the situation was very frustrating. “A. The delay, and B. The kind of complete lack of clarity as to what's going on.”

Labour Councillor John Walsh said he and other councillors on the area committee had been “gobsmacked that the process has been changed at this late stage.”

“That just as the speed limit change in urban areas is due to be implemented, a decision was made to change the entire process and to delegate that to local authorities,” Walsh said.

“It seems the minister didn't want to take responsibility for changing the urban speed limits. Instead, he wanted to shift the responsibility to local authorities,” he said.

Separately, campaigner Mairéad Forsythe of Love 30, a coalition campaigning for lowering speed limits, said she was disappointed to see the original plan abandoned.

“We think it will result in not enough roads being deemed 30 km/h, too many being left at 50,” Forsythe said. “And we also think that it's not in accordance with the legislation: the Road Traffic Act 2024.”

Arguments for reducing

Healy, the Green Party councillor, said lowering urban limits to 30 km/h is about saving lives. "It makes an enormous difference to people's safety.”

If a driver hits a pedestrian with a car at 50 km/h there’s about a 30 percent chance the pedestrian will die, but at 30km/h, the risk of a fatality is reduced six-fold: dropping to 5 percent, according to a 2023 report for the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

Sure people might moan about a reduction in speed limits, says independent Councillor Tony Murphy.

But “I would say that people who have been impacted should have a bigger voice,” says Murphy. His mother was killed by a drunk driver at age 62.

“Because they really, really, really understand how life changing it can be for a family, and extended family, and friends, to be impacted by a car accident where there's a fatality,” he said.

Aside from safety, other benefits to lowering urban speed limits include creating more liveable streets for older people and disabled people, encouraging people to walk, increasing health, and letting kids play outdoors safely, the RSA says.

As an example, Healy, the Green Party councillor, said that reducing the speed limit on roads in Baldoyle could help save some trees from being cut.

“We're going to lose a lot of trees in Baldoyle in order to get the sight line to a pedestrian crossing, which is a definitely needed pedestrian crossing,” Healy said.

“But if we can reduce the speed limit, then we won't have to lose as many trees,” he said. “Once the speed limit is officially lower, then the sight-line rules change.”

Reducing speed limits would also be in line with the county’s agenda to promote active travel, Healy said.

“We need to have a situation where we're making the streets safer for people walking and cycling, and encouraging them to feel safe and be safe,” he said. “And this reduction has been an essential part of that.”

Signs aren’t enough

For Murphy, the independent councillor, it’s not just about posting new speed limits. It’s also about ensuring drivers obey them.

"There's no point if we have a lovely set of new signage and reduced speed limits, and people are not adhering to it,” he said.

There’s a need for more guards, trimming the hedges, installing ramps, putting mirrors up, ensuring sight lines, using drones to monitor speed, communicating with the public, and engaging with schools, he said. Cleaning the “bloody signs.”

There are measures that help within the government’s control, and Murphy wants to use them to make the roads safer, he says.

Forsythe, of Love 30, agreed – getting drivers to slow down will take more than lowering the speed limit.

“We do see a lot of practical difficulties about persuading drivers to adhere to a 30 kilometer,” she said.

She had some examples of things that work are: narrowing roads to force drivers to slow down, having more pedestrian crossings, traffic signals, putting in flower pots.

For now, what is clear is: the timeline isn’t.

Culhane, the engineer at Fingal County Council, said he envisions now that staff will start working away on the maps – and he said he hopes they can come back to the council towards the end of the year with proposals.

But that’s just his guess. “Phase two now has been pushed out indefinitely,” Culhane said. “But we are progressing work in the background there, based on the information we have.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.