Brennan to redeploy gardaí for traffic corps

The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, plans to release up to 400 gardaí from fine collection to form the core of a 580-strong…

The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, plans to release up to 400 gardaí from fine collection to form the core of a 580-strong dedicated Traffic Corps.

This initiative appears to offer a solution to the "legal difficulties" presented by trying to use civilians to prosecute traffic offences.

Fine collection and a number of other administrative duties will be contracted out to a private company.

A spokeswoman for the Department said Mr Brennan was examining the outstanding issues with the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and they hoped to present final proposals at a emergency meeting on road deaths on September 22nd.

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This meeting was called after ten people were killed in just 24 hours on Irish roads on the weekend of September 4 and 5th.

This year, 236 people have been killed on Irish roads, 44 more than on the same day last year. The emergency summit will bring together the Departments of Transport and Justice, An Garda Síochána, the National Road Authority and the National Safety Council.

Mr Brennan this morning defended the penalty points system, saying it was changing driver behaviour. "In the 22 months since it came in, road deaths are down by a hundred, compared with the corresponding period before they came in", the minister said.

Mr Brennan's plans were welcomed by the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI)."We look forward to a corps which is fully resourced in terms of personnel, computer back-up, vehicles, and any necessary technical equipment to enable them to carry out their duties efficiently and well."

Mr Brennan said weekend newspaper reports of him being "browned off" with the gardaí reflected his frustration with delays in computerising the penalty points system, for which he was not blaming the gardaí.

"I am expressing a degree of frustration at how long it has taken all of us to get the computer system in place which we set out on over two years ago. This is a huge computer system designed to deal with penalty points and a lot of other garda duties," he told Morning Ireland.

"I am asking [the gardaí] to look closely at what I think is a syndrome we need to tackle, which is Friday night and Saturday night between the hours of 12 and three.

"That seems to be the slot now in which over one-third of people die on our roads. And I am suggesting that people focus our efforts on that particular slot for a couple of months at least to see if we can make an impact on it."

"Three per cent of fatal accidents take place on motorways. And I am not asking [gardaí] to not do their job everywhere, they should do it everywhere, including motorways.

"If we know the particular time slot in which it's happening, we know these are happening largely on back roads then I am asking for co-operation and support to try and focus on that problem," he said.