AT LAST: a roundabout for accident black spot
WORK STARTS AT NOTORIOUS ASHFIELD CROSS
Wednesday September 01 2010
WORK HAS FINALLY STARTED on a roundabout at Ashfield Cross - seven and a half years after it claimed the lives of two young Dublin children.
The controversial junction, which has been the scene of many accidents, was criticised by Dublin City Coroners Court in 2004 after the death of three-year-old Connell Clarges and his sister Katie, from Cherrywood, Loughlinstown.
The Clarges children died when their family car collided with a lorry at Ashfield Cross, just a few miles from Rosslare Europort, in August 2003.
In 2004, Dublin Coroner Dr. Brian Farrell wrote to Wexford County Council asking them to examine the configuration of the junction.
After securing €600,000 to build a new roundabout in April of this year, Wexford County Council are now finally ready to proceed with the project.
At least four other people have died at the same junction, and a spate of minor accidents have occurred there since the Clarges' children lost their lives.
This week Cllr. George Lawlor welcomed the start of the project at what he said is a 'notoriously dangerous cross'.
'It has been the scene of some horrific accidents, sadly some of them fatal. This development is long overdue,' he said.
Senator Liam Twomey, who attended the scene of the Clarges accident in 2003 described that scene as 'one of the most traumatic of my own medical career'. 'I know that this had a profound effect on everyone who attended the accident. I know it was extremely upsetting for ambulance crews, firemen and gardaí who like the other doctors and nurses thought they had seen it all in their careers,' he said. ' There have been other accidents at this site, where lives have been lost and people injured. I hope that when this work is completed, we won't see these tragedies again,' he said.
- ANNE MARIE O'CONNOR
