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By Anne Lucey

All 425 housing estates in Kerry - including Killarney town - are to have a maximum limit of 30kms per hour - in what is the first revised speed limits agreement in over a decade.

Dozens of roads and locations will be subject to changes in speed limits under the special speed limit bye-laws adopted at a Kerry County Council meeting on Monday.

The changes are due to come into effect in four month’s time.

Several sections of the Ring of Kerry will see speed limits fall from 100kms to 80kms an hour and less, and the maximum speed approaching all national schools on this and all other routes, will be 50km.

Submissions on the need to revise sections of the Ring of Kerry centred on safety and included concern about the narrowness of the carriageway of the N70, N71 and N72 Ring of Kerry Road which is heavily trafficked for several months of the year with bus coaches and cars.

Beaufort Bridge is to be reduced to 60km. A section of the Port Road from the New Road to the Castlerosse is to increase to 60kms. Glenflesk village on the N22 will have a speed limit of just 60kms, as agreed by the TII after submissions by councillors and the public.

There are also limits of 50kms in the vicinity Kate Kearney’s Cottage area of the Gap of Dunloe, down from 80kms.

“The most significant change is to the speed limit at schools,” Charlie O’Sullivan, Director of Services said.

Currently, some 48 of the 135 national schools in Kerry were in rural areas where the default speed was 80kms. The new 50km will apply now.

These are the first new limits since 2006 the meeting was told, and include measures by both Kerry County Council, for local and regional roads as well and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for the national network.

However, councillors were very critical of the refusal by the TII to reduce the speed limit on the N22 at Poulgorm Bridge, the turn off from the Killarney/Cork road to Kilgarvan, Kenmare and west Cork.

There have been seven accidents at the junction in 2018, Cllr Johnny Healy-Rae added. At the very least lighting and road marking were needed, the councillor said.

The junction was “highly dangerous” and while he was glad to have been allowed to make several submissions to them, the approach by the TII in their reply to the council was either to refuse or allow.

This was a “take it or leave it” attitude that diminished the role of the councillor even further than it was already.

His sister Cllr Maura Healy-Rae criticised the refusal of the TII to reduce the speed from 80km to 60km from the Lissivigeen Roundabout to Pike Hill, a busy approach road to Killarney with junctions for industry as well as housing.

The new speed limits and the various schedules will be available to view online at www.kerrycoco.ie.