The Taoiseach Mr Ahern refused to acknowledge yesterday that his election motorcade has been breaking the speed limit during his visits to constituencies around the country.
Mr Ahern was questioned about the speeding after The Irish Times reported that the motorcade travelled through Wexford at a top speed of 95 m.p.h. on Thursday.
However, he appeared to treat the subject as a light-hearted one.
"I would have to tell you . . . the only one that was going at 95 miles an hour was myself, because my motorcade met me on the other side of Wexford . . . I walked through Wexford if it was me," he continued.
In one week's electioneering Mr Ahern, and his canvassing party, have covered 1,500 miles and visited 20 constituencies.
Mr Ahern said his motorcade had not been going at 95 miles an hour. Asked if he had broken the speed limit at any time since the election has been called the Taoiseach replied:
"I haven't been monitoring, but I do not think so. What we have been doing is trying to keep everyone together and trying to keep all the travelling press with me so that they don't get lost.
"Because of that I have been slowing down to ridiculously slow levels. So what I have done is walked and in actual fact I'm nearly faster than my motorcade at this stage."
He was then asked how many State cars had been caught speeding in the past five years. "I can only remember one or two," said Mr Ahern.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said he would have no idea of the number who had been caught speeding. "The reality of the situation is of course that the cars concerned are driven by Garda drivers and as such are Garda cars. It is not desirable but they are Garda cars."
The Labour Party has said it intends to make road safety an election issue "due to the Government's failure to fully implement the five-year road safety strategy".
The Labour Party spokesman on the Environment, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said the issue was exacerbated by the Taoiseach's 95 m.p.h. dash through Co Wexford.
Launched by the Taoiseach in 1998, when he described speeding as an unacceptable social problem, the road safety strategy, The Road to Safety, aimed to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 20 per cent over 1997 levels.
However, after an initial reduction, the figures for road deaths are rising again with 11 more people killed in the first four months of this year than in the same period last year.
According to Mr Gilmore, the Taoiseach, apart from not resourcing the strategy, is "setting an awfully bad example".