The National Roads Authority (NRA) has said that the money now being spent on installing crash barriers on some motorways and dual carriageways could be better spent improving safety on more dangerous single-carriageway roads.
The NRA made a decision to install crash barriers on all dual carriageways, regardless of the width of the central median following a major crash on the M1 motorway earlier this month, in which a vehicle crossed into oncoming traffic.
Prior to the announcement, all dual carriageways - such as that section of the M1 and parts of the M50 - with a central median of 15 metres or more, were to remain barrier-free.
The NRA's head of corporate affairs, Michael Egan, says that incidences of vehicles crossing central medians that are over 15 metres wide are extremely rare, and that the money could be better used improving single-carriageway roads, where 88 per cent of all fatal and serious accidents occur.
The fatal accident rate on motorways, he pointed out, is just 0.6 per cent.
The retro-fitting of crash barriers had begun following an NRA announcement in February that an extra €5.15 million had been put aside to fund the scheme. Following the M1 accident, however, an extra €2 million must now be found to allow for all motorways and dual carriageways, even those with the extra wide medians, to have crash barriers installed.
It is a question of spending more money making the country's safest roads even safer, when that money could be used to improve rural roads where the majority of serious accidents occur, claims Mr Egan.
He points to an NRA survey that revealed that approximately 85 per cent of vehicles that strayed on to motorway central medians wider than nine metres were able to recover, and return to the side from which they were travelling.
The NRA conducted the survey following a fatal crash involving a stolen car in 2001 on the M50, sections of which have the extra wide medians. It found that only two other fatal accidents had occurred on the motorway over the preceding four-year period, neither of which was as a result of vehicles crossing the median. During the same period, more than 90 million trips were made on the M50.
If this type of safety record could be replicated on Ireland's single-carriageways, the number of people killed on our roads would fall dramatically, says Mr Egan.
Earlier this year, the Joint Committee on Transport was told by Eugene O'Connor, the NRA's head of project management and engineering, that the Authority was confident that a grass central median wider than 15 metres was ample for a driver to recover an out of control vehicle, and return to the carriageway.
The NRA's U-turn over the decision to install crash barriers on all motorways and dual carriageways was, says Mr Egan, in part a reaction to public and media interest in the M1 accident.
With all dual carriageways now having barriers fitted as standard, the NRA has also come under attack by motorcycle lobby groups for the type of barriers it is installing. There are three main types of barrier, all of which are in use across the State, and include concrete, corrugated steel beam and four-wire cable barriers.
It is the cable barriers that are causing most concern, as motorcyclists claim the sharp edges on the cable fixing posts are potentially lethal. As a result, there have been widespread calls for the NRA to stop the use of these barriers. However, the Authority is obliged under EU law to accept any barrier that meets the European standards regulation, known as EN1317. "We must accept a barrier if it meets the standard EN1317," explains Mr Egan. "We specify the performance to be met, but it is down to the contractor to select the type of barrier."