Eight people have died in road accidents since last Friday and one man was killed in an accident on a building site. The weekend road fatalities bring to 446 the number of people killed so far this year. Twenty-nine people have died in accidents this month.
In the most recent weekend road crash, early yesterday morning, a young man and woman died when their car hit a concrete seat at Grattan Road in Galway. The accident occurred just after 3.30 a.m. and the victims were named yesterday as Ms Lorraine Burke (17), from Castle Park, Ballybane, Galway, and Mr Jimmy Sweeney (20), from Headford Road, Galway.
A Co Fermanagh woman died on Saturday night when two cars collided at Carrick-on-Shannon. She was named as Ms Elizabeth McGillen, from Belcoo. The driver of the other vehicle involved suffered minor injuries.
A building worker died on Friday when he was apparently struck by the bucket of a digger on a construction site at Coshclady, Bunbeg, Co Donegal. He was Mr Frank Ferry (45), from Derrybeg, Co Donegal.
Gardai yesterday named the pedestrian who died on Friday night after being struck by a car on the Carlow-Abbeyleix road. He was Mr Noel O'Kelly (49), from Killeshin, Co Carlow.
Gardai have also released the names of the two men who drowned when their truck left the road and ended up in a stream after a collision with another vehicle at Grangemockler, Co Tipperary, on Friday. They were Mr Graham Hunt (28), of O'Neill Street, Clonmel, and Mr Damian Lackmore (24), of Elm Park, Clonmel. The truck landed cabfirst in the water, submerging the two occupants. Five of the six people in the other vehicle involved in the accident were detained overnight in hospital. The sixth person, who was driving the vehicle, was seriously injured and had to be cut from the wreckage. His condition improved yesterday and he was last night described as "stable".
In a third fatal accident on Friday Mr Geoffrey Sunderland (42), from Ballywilliam, Gorey, Co Wexford, died in a lorry crash at Tagoat near Rosslare. Mr James Doran (27), from the Turnpike halting site on the Naas Road in Co Dublin, also died on Friday when the car he was driving was in a head-on collision with a hackney cab near Ballysimon, on the Limerick-Tipperary road, at about 2.30 a.m. A second man, a passenger in the car, was seriously injured. The cab driver was in a "comfortable" condition in hospital yesterday.
Gardai made a renewed appeal at the weekend for witnesses to a hit-and-run incident in Dublin almost a month ago in which Ms Joanne McDonnell, a 37-year-old mother of six, was fatally injured when she was struck by a car which failed to stop near the junction of Buckingham Street and Summerhill. The incident occurred at about 5 a.m. on Monday, November 23rd. Gardai at Fitzgibbon Street have appealed for anyone with information to contact them at 01-8363113 or on the Garda Confidential Line (1800 66 61 11).
