The first time I went to Ireland was in the year 2000. On that visit there were very few freeways. I remember the M1 south of Dublin but I don't think there were too many others.
On this visit, twelve years later, there were lots more freeways. Generally they seem to be near Dublin and between major cities - as you might expect.
From what I saw, the freeways are well designed and well built. For example, the entrance and exit ramps allow safe traffic movements.
In the rural areas, the speed limits are generally 120km/h. I always felt safe travelling at these speeds - partly because of the good design and partly because of the traffic levels.
However, they should provide more roadside service centres where motorists can stop, revive, survive - as the saying goes.
Many of the freeways have a toll because they were built using a public private partnership (PPP) financing model. I was surprised how low the tolls were - commonly only 1.80 or 2.80 Euros.
On some freeways, they have electronic tolls. We were driving a hire car that didn't have an electronic tag and so we needed to go online to pay the toll within 24 hours to avoid a fine.
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