More than 26,000 people have died on Irish roads this century and the Government's road safety strategy is intended to tackle the "legacy of grief", the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said yesterday when opening the annual Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) conference. Mr Ahern said 172 lives would be saved by 2002 if the target of reducing annual road fatalities by 20 per cent were achieved. Referring to Tuesday's rail stoppage, he said that in the context of the progress made in developing social partnership, the stoppage had "an eerie resonance of the bad old days" of the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Dublin can ill-afford to place its transport infrastructure under any additional strain," he said.

The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Dermot Quigley, told the conference there were plans to replace the existing vehicle registration certificate and vehicle licensing certificate with a single vehicle document and a joint Department of the Environment/Revenue working group was dealing with the issue.

He said 1,133,699 cars had been registered since Revenue took on the function in 1993. For the first 10 months of this year, net Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) of £400 million had been paid, compared to £336.8 million in 1997. The SIMI, however, called for a reduction in VRT rates, currently at 28 per cent for cars with engines over 2,500 cc, and 22.5 per cent for cars of engines with 2,500 cc or less. Mr Jerr Nolan, SIMI president, said a VRT reduction of 2.5 percentage points would help redress the balance of used cars being imported into Ireland by leading to a reduction of about 4 per cent in car prices.

"We want to maintain and increase the 46,000 people employed in the motor industry without any negative impact on the massive £2.2 billion that the Government will receive from motor-related taxation this year. This can be done by reducing VRT," he said.