Some 178 people have been killed on Irish roads in 2024, according to provisional Garda figures, with Co Mayo recording the highest number of fatalities in more than 20 years.
Those killed throughout the year in the Republic ranged in age from as young as six to one man who was 90 at the time of his death.
Aside from the most recent peak of 184 recorded by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) in 2023, the number of fatalities in 2024 exceeded those recorded yearly from 2017 (154) to 2022 (155).
While an overall reduction from 2023, Co Mayo has recorded 18 fatalities, up from 11 in 2023 and the highest number since 2001 while Donegal has seen its highest number in 14 years.
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RSA breakdowns of road deaths stretching back to 2001 show that fatalities in Mayo have not breached 14 until this year.
Several fatal collisions occurred on the N17 in Mayo in particular, including that of Una Bowden (47) and her daughters Ciara (14) and Saoirse (9) who died after colliding with a lorry in March.
Some 18 fatalities were recorded in Donegal in 2024, up from 10 last year, and the highest since 2010 when 19 were killed.
An RSA spokesman said it is too early to say what is behind the rise in both counties.
“We would have to wait for the coronial data to come through. Until then, it would be inappropriate to speculate,” he said.
The majority of road collision fatalities were male (73 per cent) with female fatalities accounting for 27 per cent, according to a preliminary analysis from road safety group Parc.
Some 37 per cent (64) of those killed were aged under 30.
Among them was six-year-old Hana Meshkat from Galway, the youngest to die this year, who suffered fatal injuries in a single-vehicle crash in Co Westmeath in February.
Cal O’Keeffe, meanwhile, was the oldest recorded fatality, according to Parc’s analysis.
Mr O’Keeffe was killed after he tried to push a woman out of the way of a car in a car park in Fermoy, Co Cork.
In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, a further 67 people were killed in road collisions.
Parc founder Susan Gray has been collecting names of those killed on Irish roads since Keith Higginbotham, a 27-year-old father of two, died in a single-vehicle collision on New Year’s Day in Kildare.
“It’s important to keep these names in the public domain, these are real people,” she said, adding that the data shows “the extent of the devastation that families are suffering”.
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Noting that the road safety strategy launched in 2021 aims to halve road fatalities to 72 by 2030, Ms Gray said it is “failing”.
She urged the next government to “actually make road safety a priority”, and called for a senior minister to take control of the road safety brief rather than a junior minister which she believes suggests the issue is not a priority.
Ms Gray expressed further concern at the extent to which Garda roads-policing personnel figures have fallen over the last 15 years.
As of October 31st, the number of gardaí serving in roads-policing units stood at 623, a 40 per cent reduction from the 1,046 in place in 2009.
In May, when the figure stood at 620, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told an Oireachtas transport committee of plans to add 75 gardaí to roads policing units and a further 75 in 2025.
A Garda spokesman said 23 members have been transferred to roads policing units to date in the second half of 2024, while further transfers will commence “shortly and throughout 2025″.
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