The Government should consider holding a constitutional referendum if it is needed to bring about the introduction of random breath testing, the acting head of the National Safety Council said yesterday.
Alan Richardson, who has been acting CEO since Eddie Shaw stepped down, said the measure could save 150 lives every year. The number of road deaths so far this year reached 378 this week, 24 more than for the same period last year.
The figure has also surpassed the total for 2004, with two-and-a-half weeks left before the end of December.
This year is now shaping up to be the worst year for road deaths since 2001, when 411 people lost their lives on the country's roads. The current road safety strategy 2004 to 2006 aims to reduce road deaths to less than 300.
Random breath testing was originally due to be introduced in the Government's road safety strategy in 1999, but it has been delayed by concerns the measure may not be constitutional and that it may be challenged if introduced too quickly.
The Minister for Transport has said he is preparing legislation to enable random breath-testing.
But Mr Richardson said: "We should be trying to tackle the problem and not trying to skirt around it. If it is a constitutional problem, go to the constitution and ask the people.
"Maybe you can't have a referendum every day of the week but we've had about 34 since the Constitution was first written," he added.
He said random breath testing should be introduced as soon as possible. "Otherwise too many people are going to lose their lives." He said 35-40 per cent of road fatalities are alcohol-related.
New Garda figures revealed yesterday that most accidents occur at exactly the same hours of Saturday and Sunday and that most arrests are made for drink-driving.
The patterns of fatalities and of drink-driving arrests are almost identical.
Mr Richardson said gardaí "have done their level best to ramp up the number of interceptions for drink driving."
"But the fact that we don't have random breath testing is a serious impediment to tackling the problem of drink driving. You can understand the frustration of gardaí and perhaps their enthusiasm is somewhat muted by court cases that fail because of obscure technicalities."
Mr Richardson said the fact that many aspects of the Road Safety Strategy 2004 to 2006 had not been rolled out was "a contributing factor in not halting the deaths."
He said the extension of the penalty points system to include a full range of offences was needed, as was the introduction of a network of private speed and safety cameras.
"We can only do our best as a promotion, awareness and education body, but it has to be supported by the other pillars - Garda enforcement and legislation from Government."
Commenting on the latest road death figures, Fine Gael spokeswoman on transport Olivia Mitchell said: "What has gone wrong is that there is no enforcement.
"There is no political will. No one wants to take responsibility."
