Last year was the worst for fatalities on Irish roads since 2014, with 190 people killed. There have been 58 deaths on Irish roads to date this year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, campaigners claim 37pc of drink-\u00addriving court cases fail to \u00adresult in convictions.<\/p>\n
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI) has called for a dramatic increase in the number of tests being carried out.<\/p>\n
AAI is to address the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport about alcohol\u2019s impact on road safety today, as it lobbies for increased spot breath-testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncredibly, the annual number of breath tests carried out in the last 15 years has plummeted as the number of drivers has skyrocketed,\u201d AAI chief executive Dr Sheila Gilheany said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2010, the first full year for which there is breath-test data, there were 2,655,048 driving licences held in the country and 566,760 breath tests were carried out, resulting in 10,308 arrests for drink driving.<\/p>\n
Alcohol Action Ireland wants more breath tests. Photo: PA<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2025 there were 3,538,732 licences held but only 189,736 breath tests carried out, resulting in 4,867 arrests for drink driving.\u201d<\/p>\n
AAI said that in Australia, there is a target that every licensed driver should expect to be tested once a year.<\/p>\n
Dr Gilheany said: \u201cIn Australia their level of driver fatalities with a positive alcohol toxicology is 14pc, compared with 35pc in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlcohol is involved in over a third of driver deaths on our roads. Almost one in eight drivers [12pc] admit to drink driving in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
\nIn 2021 just 18 tests per 1,000 inhabitants were carried out here<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s around 424,500 people a year, or 1,160 a day, taking a lethal weapon on to our roads after drinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the percentage of people admitting to drink driving is rising, up from 9pc in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the Christmas road safety campaign carried out by garda\u00ed, from December 1 to January 5, 765 drivers were arrested for suspected drink driving.<\/p>\n
AAI met with junior transport minister Se\u00e1n Canney yesterday to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cRigorous and highly visible enforcement is crucial, and random breath testing is central to this,\u201d Dr Gilheany said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoad Safety Authority data shows three in four people deem it \u2018unlikely\u2019 or \u2018very unlikely\u2019 to be breath-tested on a typical journey \u2013 and they are right. Ireland has the lowest level of roadside breath testing in the EU.<\/p>\n
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Junior transport minister Se\u00e1n Canney. Photo: Brian Lawless<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2021 just 18 tests per 1,000 inhabitants were carried out here. In France that figure was 109 and the league was topped by Estonia with a rate of 576 tests.\u201d<\/p>\n
AAI also called for the time window for taking blood samples following an incident to be extended from three to 12 hours, especially when long distances to hospitals are involved.<\/p>\n
It argued vehicles should be impounded following a failed breath test.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Department of Transport said: \u201cEnforcement of road traffic laws is the responsibility of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Transport works closely with An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na on road safety and welcomes any measures that increase the level of enforcement on our roads.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year was the worst for fatalities on Irish roads since 2014, with 190 people killed. There have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[956,9,10,8335,4893,13,14,2220,6,11,12,2188,15,16,5,68414,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-483689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-darragh-nolan","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-laura-lynott","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-road-safety-authority-rsa","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116570944629673405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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