Greater compliance with speed limits is the Government's priority in cutting road deaths, the ail House was told.

The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Robert Molloy, said there would be greater use of automated speed-detection systems and of traffic-calming under the Government's Strategy for Road Safety, which aims to cut fatalities by 172 a year.

During environment questions, Mr Molloy said the Republic had a relatively small proportion (6 per cent) of drivers aged under 25 compared to other EU countries, but this age group accounted for 32 per cent of driver deaths and 23 per cent of all road fatalities.

He agreed with Mr Alan Dukes (FG, Kildare South) that there was a need to have highly visible Garda vehicles on the road which would slow drivers and discourage speeding. Mr Dukes said this would be much better than the drivers being caught after the offence had been committed.

The Minister said this would involve a lot more Garda time. It was all basically down to driver attitude and courtesy.

There was a need for a major change in the "culture" with regard to speeding and wearing seat belts, the use of which was disappointingly low, he said. There was also still a need for a change in attitude to driving with illegal amounts of alcohol consumed although there were signs young people were adopting a responsible attitude.

Mr Brendan Howlin, Labour's deputy leader, asked the Minister to reconsider national speed limits. There were 60 m.p.h. speed limits on some very bad roads and dual carriageways.

Mr Molloy said the high-level group which drew up the national road strategy had not recommended changing speed limits. Speed limits had been comprehensively revised this decade and were broadly in line with European practice.

"However, the option of revising speed limits downwards is not ruled out if enforcement of the existing limits does not show good progress towards the strategy goal of cutting present levels of excessive speeding by 50 per cent."

The Minister told Mr Brian Hayes (FG, Dublin South West) there were 90,000 people on their second provisional driving licences. Mr Hayes reminded the Minister that in March Mr Molloy had told the Dail there was a six-month wait for driving tests, but now the delay was eight months.

Mr Molloy said the situation was most unsatisfactory but in March the driver-testers' union was in negotiations.

These had now been successfully concluded and there would be agreements on increased productivity, employment on a contract basis of additional driver-testers and employment of additional full-time driver-testers. They hoped to get the waiting time down to 10 weeks.

He said a theory test would be introduced next year for first-time applicants for provisional licences and a significant cut was proposed in the number of drivers relying on such licences.