Minister for Transport Martin Cullen will meet the chief executive designate of the new Road Safety Authority this morning to finalise a range of measures aimed at reducing the death toll on the Republic's roads.
The meeting follows one of the worst weekends on the roads in recent years, which saw nine people killed in car crashes.
Mr Cullen is expected to outline his package of measures in Government Buildings this afternoon when he launches the national road building programme for 2006. The safety authority is to replace the National Safety Council.
The measures, aimed at easing difficulties in the existing Road Safety Strategy, will include efforts to dramatically reduce the waiting list for driving tests.
Commitments are also to be given on specific levels of enforcement across the three key areas of seat-belt wearing, speed limits and drink-driving.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said measures to improve road safety would include reduced driving test waiting times and new penalty points offences, but will not include random breath-testing, a limited form of which is currently being studied by the Attorney General. Mr Cullen's move follows mounting criticism from Opposition politicians and the former chairman of the National Safety Council, Eddie Shaw, that the Government is not implementing its own Road Safety Strategy.
Labour spokeswoman Róisín Shortall said Mr Cullen's failure to deliver on strategy contributed to the horrific carnage seen on the roads at the weekend.
The deaths of four people in three separate incidents on Sunday night brought to 29 the number of road deaths so far this month.
In Co Galway, a man and a woman died when their car rounded a bend, veered off the road and hit a telegraph pole and pillar. Mairtín Keane (19) of Derrartha, Carraroe and Áine Ní Conghaille (18) of Trá Bhán, Leitir Mór both lost their lives in the crash that occurred at 11.30pm at Bóthar an Cillin, Carraroe.
The victims were pronounced dead at the scene and later removed to University College Hospital, Galway.
The scene of the crash was cordoned off yesterday for technical examination.
At midnight, a 19-year-old man was killed when the car he was driving crashed into a ditch. The collision happened at Ballinapark, Ashford, Co Wicklow.
In Louth, a 29-year-old man died when the car he was driving crashed through a railing on the Bridge of Peace in Drogheda and landed in the River Boyne.
The accident happened at 3am. He was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, where he later died.
Earlier in the weekend, five people were killed and seven injured in crashes in counties Mayo, Tipperary, and Cavan.
Urging the Government to take urgent action on the carnage, Alan Richardson, of the National Safety Council, said it was incredibly frustrating that the number of road deaths in January was already at 29.
Last year 33 people were killed in January. The highest death toll for January in recent years was in 2002 when 35 people lost their lives. In 2003, after the introduction of penalty points, the number killed in January fell to 20.
Mr Richardson reiterated the council's call for the urgent introduction of random breath-testing.
"I seriously believe that the public are on our side on random breath-testing. I'm not going to argue that there will not be some diminution of our civil liberties, but are we willing to let almost 400 people die every year? If other countries are prepared to embrace it without their democracy collapsing, I don't see why we can't."