Laois school traffic sparks serious fears over potential accident

There are fears speeding and ‘obstructive’ parking at school times will cause an accident in Portlaoise

Published 10th Sep 2026, 21:00 BST A Colliers Lane resident said bike lanes are being obstructed during school drop off times. There are fears speeding and ‘obstructive’ parking at school times will cause an accident in Portlaoise Sign up to our Laois Live newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Laois Live within your account.

School time traffic in Portlaoise is causing serious concerns regarding a potential road traffic incident.

The Laois Local Community Safety Partnership held its first public meeting on Tuesday, September 8 in Laois County Council . The public were invited to submit any questions or concerns they had in relation to safety in the community ahead of the meeting.

A long-standing resident of Colliers Lane in Portlaoise wrote to the LCSP regarding road safety on the street during busy school collection times.

With schools now back, Colliers Lane and the surrounding areas experience a high volume of traffic in the mornings and evenings with two big schools there, Scoil Chríost Rí and St Mary’s CBS.

The resident raised a number of concerns regarding the traffic during these hours.

“The key issues were inappropriate and obstructive parking on bicycle lanes and private entrances, pedestrians and cyclists mixing unsafely, e-bikes and motorbikes traveling at excessive speed, and concerns that an incident will occur,” the LCSP Coordinator and Administrator Sinead Williams explained at the meeting.

The LCSP representative for An Garda Síochána, Superintendent Brian Farrell, agreed completely with the resident’s concerns.

Speaking at the meeting, Superintendent Farrell said: “An Garda Síochána have a massive role to play in relation to enforcement for roads policing, drugs, crime, or anything like that. We're not the only role though either. I went down on Thursday morning at 8 o’clock. I met with one of our community gardaí down there and had a look, and what they said was right. It’s a very busy area with a large number of pupils coming around the same time.

Laois County Council signs off forced purchase of two derelict properties with housing plan “And there are the bike paths. There are motorists who are coming up to the roundabout at the bottom of Colliers Lane and Borris Road. They have a good one-way system in where they can go around, they can drop off, and they can go around the roundabout and are back on Colliers Lane towards Portlaoise. But that means they're stopping on a bike lane, which is pushing the bikes and e-scooters up onto the paths where the pedestrians are.”

The Superintendent said the question is how to combat this issue as although enforcement is their domain, other actions could be taken to try and improve road safety in the area by making the bike lanes safer.

“We want people and kids cycling to work and school, they have to be safe as well. So we'll come back to you about that when we meet and we'll see if we can gain on that,” the Superintendent said.

The Portlaoise MD Office also responded to the query and confirmed that they will be liaising with the community policing section and the road safety officer on the issues raised. The MD Office will also refer the matter to Active Travel and the Roads Section of Laois County Council to assess whether any measures could be considered as part of future projects and funding applications.