Garda roads policing numbers continued to fall during 2023, with 47 fewer officers than at the beginning of the year, according to new data.
It comes as figures were released for a tragic year on Irish roads, with 184 people dying in collisions, an almost 20 per cent increase on the previous year.
The fatality rate was the highest in almost a decade, with 1,250 suffering serious injuries by mid-December.
Data from the Department of Justice, sourced and analysed by the safety advocacy group Parc, shows there were 641 members of An Garda Síochána in its roads policing unit by the end of November. That figure is down from 688 in January 2023 and 692 at the end of 2022.
The Minister of State with responsibility for road transport, Jack Chambers, said he understood the frustrations of campaigners and foresaw an increase in recruitment levels.
“Enforcement isn’t at a level of strength that it should be and it needs to improve,” Mr Chambers said.
Roads policing numbers as of November were at their lowest total since the end of 2017 when there were 623. Numbers have also dropped 39 per cent since 2009.
Over the last decade, some counties have seen their roads policing force depleted. Such counties include Kildare, Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo, Leitrim and North Cork, which have seen complements fall by between 12-15 officers since 2013, or drops of between 36-48 per cent.
Some roads policing numbers increased over those 10 years, including in areas such as Wexford, Tipperary and Louth, but by relatively less.
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“Forty-seven valuable Garda members have gone from roads policing this year alone (in 2023). And that’s at a time when we have 184 precious lives lost on Irish roads,” said Parc founder Susan Gray.
Commitment to increasing numbers, Ms Gray suggested, could be measured by the amount of gardaí freed up to join roads units as a result of the 277 recently trained recruits at Templemore.
A Garda spokesman said the force was “gravely concerned” by the trends but would not comment on the specific details of numbers attached to specialist units which can vary on a month-to-month basis due to “many variables”.
The spokesman said additional numbers would be available for roads policing as recruitment continues, noting that road deaths were sometimes lower even in years when there were fewer gardaí dedicated to policing roads.
According to Parc data, in Dublin, where 14 people had been killed by December 28th, there are 139 fewer members than in 2009. In Cork, with the same number of fatalities, there are 46 fewer dedicated gardaí in the same time span.
Tipperary, a county that has suffered a very high death rate of 16 during the year, has seen its roads policing force almost halved from 40 to 25.
Mr Chambers said he has had “constructive engagement” with senior gardaí about the need to improve Garda visibility on the roads and that there would be a “roads policing dividend” from increased recruitment.
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“Perceptions around enforcement is a central factor in how the public perceive legislation and policy and it’s really important that that’s strengthened,” Mr Chambers said.
“I would share the view of many of the road safety groups that it needs to be improved and we know from some of the data that some of the enforcement levels are down on what they were,” he said, adding that 2024 would see a strategy drawn up for “camera-based enforcement at scale”, as well further work reforming the driving test – the curriculum for which is 30 years old and “out of kilter with the modern driving experience”.
Last October, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said “we are of course trying to do everything we can to increase the number of people working in those roads units”.
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