Over the coming Christmas season members of the Garda Síochána will mount road checks in cold and miserable conditions across the State to identify and apprehend drunken motorists.
They will attempt to reduce the horrendous level of road deaths and injuries caused by such criminal behaviour. But they will do so under the gravest of handicaps because they cannot engage in random breath-testing. They must have reason to believe a motorist is intoxicated before they can take action. As a consequence, 90 per cent of those breathalysed last Christmas were found to be over the limit.
At the launch of a new road safety campaign in Dublin yesterday, the Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen, said he hoped to introduce legislation providing for random breath-testing by the end of 2005. That is not good enough. It is now seven years since the Government first promised to introduce this measure to crack down on drunken driving. And there is still no definite delivery date. If there is a constitutional difficulty, it should have been addressed long ago. Until it is, the suspicion will remain that the Government is more concerned about appeasing the drinks industry and irresponsible motorists than about preventing road deaths.
In spite of such failure, slow progress is being made. A Garda recruitment drive started yesterday with a target of employing an extra 2,000 men and women within three years. This exercise will provide an additional 500 or so recruits for a Traffic Corps that was established this week by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell. The higher profile of this dedicated body - along with the increased risk of being caught - should induce motorists to become more law-abiding.
A strong link has been established between fear of detection and good motoring behaviour. The recent rise in the number of Irish road deaths, towards a pre-2002 average, suggests that the impact of the penalty points system has worn off. And a lack of Government funding in Garda manpower, technology and computer systems contributed to that situation. There has been some sporadic improvement. Four out of five drivers and front-seat passengers now wear seat belts. But speeding and the use of drink or drugs, remain a lethal combination. Four out of 10 road deaths are caused by drink, according to a recent study.
We know what the problem is. It is the inability or unwillingness of far too many motorists to control their drinking habits. Until that changes, we should adopt the no-nonsense Australian approach and breathalyse every driver that emerges from a pub car park.