Consideration should be given to graduated fines to ensure drivers travelling at higher speeds are “more severely punished”, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has told the Government.
In a letter to then minister of State for transport Jack Chambers in May, Mr Harris said the introduction of a graduated penalty point system in proportion with the relevant offence would deter poor driving and bad behaviours on Irish roads.
The commissioner was responding to Mr Chambers, who had written to him in April, stating that if current trends continue, this year will be the worst “on our roads in close to two decades and more than 200 people may lose their lives”.
“This is a crisis on our roads, and it is incumbent on all of us to prioritise an effective response,” Mr Chambers said.
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The correspondence was released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act. There had been 101 deaths on the State’s roads so far this year as of Thursday morning, an increase of 14 on the same period last year, according to Garda figures. The figure increased further yesterday evening when a man (70s) died in a single vehicle crash on the Ring of Kerry.
In his letter, Mr Chambers said he was repeating earlier calls for roads policing units to be prioritised for additional resources as he believed this “is the single most effective action we can take based on the evidence”.
In his correspondence, the commissioner said it was disappointing that “significant challenges” prevail regarding access to current real-time data from the National Driver Vehicle File (NDVF). The NDVF is a database containing details of all registered vehicles and their owners as well as licenced drivers in the country.
[ Ireland drops to ninth place in European road fatality rankingsOpens in new window ]
Mr Harris said issues around the database were impeding the detection of disqualified drives and those driving without a licence. “I am aware that this matter has been raised with your department, however, it is my understanding that a solution remains outstanding,” he said.
The commissioner said he shared Mr Chambers’s deep concern regarding the level of road fatalities this year and there was “no organisational policy” to reduce resources in roads policing units.
He said an avenue that might be considered to increase road safety for motorcyclists, 13 of whom have died on the roads this year, was a periodic technical inspection for roadworthiness. “As it stands, Ireland is one of only a handful of EU states that doesn’t require any level of roadworthiness testing for motorcycles,” he said.
Mr Chambers was appointed Minister for Finance last month, with James Lawless succeeding him as Minister of State for Transport.
The Department of Transport said this week there was no further correspondence between Mr Chambers and the commissioner following the May letter. It said during the previous government, the then minister for transport Shane Ross had proposed graduated penalties for speeding, which were considered in the early development of what would eventually become the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023.
“During the long preparation for that Act, many other matters requiring urgent legislative attention were added to the Bill, while graduated speeding penalties were not progressed,” a department spokesman said. “Minister Lawless has made no decision on whether or not to revisit this proposal in the future.”
In relation to the NDVF, the department said it has a “technical solution available” and a way to connect An Garda Síochána to this solution “will be developed once all the governance arrangements are complete”.
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