Incentives worth up to £1,000 for young drivers to encourage them to become safer drivers have been proposed by Fine Gael in a policy initiative on road safety.
The plan envisages young people taking part in a four-stage, road safety course beginning in secondary school in return for 25 hours of free driving tuition, a £300 voucher towards their first car insurance premium and additional discounts from the insurance industry.
Launching the initiative, Mr Denis Naughten TD, whose father died in a car accident, said one of the reasons the State had the third worst rate of road deaths in Europe was due to fundamental problems in the current system.
"There is clear evidence that the way many new drivers learn is unsatisfactory. Too many people are taking the test ill prepared. Fewer than half of drivers pass the test first time. Even after passing the test, young and newly-qualified drivers have a poor safety record."
He said the scheme would cost the government about £34 million to implement.
The party document estimates that one person is killed on Irish roads every 19 hours, a young person is killed every two days and someone injured every 40 minutes. So far this year 265 people have been killed, with 31 of those deaths this month.
The document also advocates the establishment of a statutory register for driving instructors, a reduction in waiting time for a test from seven to two months and the introduction of a novice drivers' logbook.
Under the current system, provisional licence holders are not required to take lessons before a driving test or to take a test for up to four years following receipt of their first licence.
Mr Simon Coveney TD said the driving logbook would cover a syllabus relevant to today's conditions and offer learners a structured approach to amassing the necessary skills for driving. The logbook would take a young person from the road safety course to the theory test, driving tuition and finally the driving test.
Mr Billy Timmins TD said the Government was doing nothing to tackle the inconsistency in numbers shown by the 380,000 people registered as provisional licence holders compared to the 92,000 people currently on waiting lists to take their driving test. "These figures are not reconcilable. It appears most people are simply not applying for the test."
The Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) yesterday welcomed the policy document.