Cllr Reilly seeks to make Dungooley Crossroads in north Louth four way stop

Cllr John Reilly tabled a motion at the Dundalk Municipal District June meeting, calling on Louth County Council to make the Dungooley Crossroads at Dungooley in north Louth, a four way stop in the interest of road safety.

Cllr Reilly expressed his concerns at the meeting in relation to a recent car accident at the junction which saw emergency services from both sides of the border being dispatched to deal with it. He told the meeting that for a rural location, it has high volumes of traffic going through the junction en route to the M1 motorway from the north of Ireland, and the village of Forkhill with traffic heading onto the Armagh road.

The response provided to Cllr Reilly from Catherine Duff, Director of Services, Operations, was that Louth County Council "would not recommend implementing a four way stop at the junction". She stated that "four way stop arrangements are rare in Ireland and there is no national standard/guidance in relation to them. Recorded accident statistics for this junction show five minor injury and two material damage accidents for this junction over the 15 year period 2002-2017."

Ms Duff went on to say that "there is advance warning signage and stop signage in place as appropriate on the L3113 at Dungooley Cross and we can arrange for existing line markings to be refreshed if necessary. We have also added the L3113/L7105 to the queue for placement of traffic counter so that we can collect traffic volume and speed data in order to obtain a fuller picture of the traffic using these roads." She added that they have recommended that the location be referred to the local authority's Road Safety Officer, Adrian O'Sullivan to raise with An Garda Síochána, whose opinion and information would help make the best informed decision.

Cllr Reilly told the meeting that he has communicated with the Garda station in Hackballscross, who he says agree about changing the junction in the long-term interest of safety. He added that he lives 600 metres from Marmion's Cross which is now a four way stop,  which he says leaves the junction considerably safer. His comment was supported by Cllr Conor Keelan at the meeting, who said that the four way stop at Marmion's Cross "works well."