Five people have been killed on the roads since the weekend, bringing the traffic accident fatality total this year to 392.
The number of road fatalities this year has fallen by 12 compared to the number up to December 17th last year. However, the figure is still high and there were 10 deaths in the last seven days alone.
A National Safety Council spokeswoman said the number of fatalities was still huge. There were three main problems, particularly with young male drivers: speed, not wearing seat belts, and drink-driving. The level of serious injuries was high with an average of 12,000 a year. Of those, 3,000 people would never fully recover.
Another area which should be tackled was fatigue and drug-driving. "If it is prevalent in society, then it must be among drivers and it is not only illegal drugs, it is people on prescription drugs who may not realise the effect they have," the NSC representative said. The Minister for the Environment had indicated he was looking into this area, the spokeswoman added.
A person is twice as likely to be killed in a road accident in the Republic of Ireland as the UK.