Road accidents in the Republic claimed the life of one person every 23 hours, the Fine Gael spokesman on transport, Mr Denis Naughten, told the Dáil.
He added that there was currently an accident every 21 minutes. "In the past 12 months, 331 people lost their lives on Ireland's roads, not to mention the personal grief and suffering of families involved in such tragic circumstances."
For example, people could not but be touched by the report relating to nine-year-old Alyssa Blazer, who was left orphaned last year after her father was killed in a road accident just a year after her mother was killed in a crash in the Canary Islands.
Mr Naughten said that, since January of last year, road fatalities were up by one-quarter on those of the same period last year. "While the Minister for Transport is prepared to introduce new laws, he has shown that he is not prepared to fund the enforcement of them."
He added that the Garda and the Minister for Transport had used the penalty points to highlight their success at implementing road safety measures.
"Penalty points were never devised to put people off the road. They were developed to get people to change their attitude, abide by the rules, improve their driving standards and, thereby, save lives."
Mr Naughten was introducing a Fine Gael Private Member's motion calling for measures to reduce loss of life on the roads. These included the introduction of mandatory approved training courses for all instructors, and the establishment of a road accident investigation unit to prevent recurrences - especially in the vicinity of black spots. The House will vote tonight.
Calling for modernisation of the driving test, Mr Naughten said it had not been reviewed in 20 years and was, therefore, not reflective of modern traffic and road and vehicle engineering.
The Labour spokeswoman on transport, Ms RóisíShortall, said the initial introduction of penalty points was successful. "However, the success was extremely short-lived. Almost immediately, drivers realised that the level of enforcement for road-traffic offences that would lead to penalty points was very poor."
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said that reading the Fine Gael motion one would think there was no Government programme relating to road safety. "In 1998, it was this Government that undertook the establishment and publication of the first national road safety strategy. As a result of the implementation of the policies set out in that strategy, road deaths are year-on-year significantly reduced from the position which the Government inherited."
Mr Brennan said he intended submitting detailed proposals for a package of driver-licensing reforms to Government shortly. A particular change was to change the title of a provisional licence to that of learner permit.
"This measure will reinforce the fact that such a licence is designed for learning purposes and is not intended as a driving licence," he said.
