‘Excessive incidents’ on stretch of road in Kilkenny

Fresh calls have been made to re-examine a stretch of the N77 road in County Kilkenny following last week’s horror collision that left twelve people injured.

Gardaí and emergency services were alerted shortly after 10.20am last Thursday following a collision involving a lorry and a school bus on the N77 at Ardloo, in the vicinity of Dinan Bridge.

The driver of the lorry, a man in his 40s was airlifted from the scene to Tallaght University Hospital with serious injuries.
The bus driver, a male in his 50s, was removed to Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Eight children and two adult passengers on the bus were also removed from the scene by ambulance to St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny for treatment and assessment.

One of the first public representatives on the scene was local councillor Pat Fitzpatrick.

Cllr Fitzpatrick said that concerns have been raised about this stretch of N77 from Henebery’s Cross to Oldtown ‘for years now’.

“More safety features are needed on and around Dinan Bridge and that whole stretch of the N77 and we need Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to listen,” he said.

The issue of safety on this stretch of N77 also formed part of a large discussion at this week’s meeting of the elected members of Kilkenny County Council.

Cllr David Fitzgerald renewed his plea for the section of road between Henebry’s Cross and George’s Tree ‘to be realigned’.

He added that statistics for that stretch of road ‘be brought to the attention of TII’, citing ‘excessive incidents’ in the area.

Cllr John Coonan highlighted the fact that growing numbers of people will be using the road to visit Kilkenny Countryside Park in Dunmore and that this should also be considered.

Cllr Pat Dunphy said that ‘more meetings are needed with TII’ and Cllr Deirdre Cullen stated that the issue of the N77 should ‘be kept on the agenda’, adding that elected members ‘should keep fighting for it’.

The suggestion introducing ‘flashing lights’ ahead of the bridge was raised by Cllr Denis Hynes while Cllr Eugene McGuinness made the point that ‘driver behaviour is something we all need to be careful of’.

In the meantime, gardaí are continuing to appeal for any witnesses of the collision to come forward.

They are also asking any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) from the N77 in the vicinity of Ardloo at the time to make it available to investigating gardaí.