Gardaí have declined to confirm whether or not members of the force will be used to plug gaps during a 72-hour strike by speed camera operators this weekend.

The escalation comes as part of the unions ongoing dispute with the company over staff working conditions and union recognition.

Speed van operators are taking the action claiming they're confined for up to 11 hours at a time in the vans without toilet breaks.

Up to 35 staff who work for a speed-camera operator have voted to go on strike.

304 drivers were caught speeding in the 24-hour period of National Slow Down Day.

Two hundred and twenty five people were caught speeding on National Slow Down day yesterday.

An Garda Síochána is coming under pressure to publish full details of any contracts with private firms operating mobile speed detection cameras after it emerged that GoSafe, which operates 50 speed detection vehicles, was paid €1.2 million per month to carry out speed checks under the terms of a contract.

Update 1.29pm: Dublin West TD Jack Chambers has described this morning’s revelations relating to the contract awarded by the Department of Justice to GoSafe to carry out speed checks as “deeply troubling”.

Gardaí are reminding us that 188 people died on our roads in 2016.

A total of 341 vehicles were caught speeding on National Slow Down Day, gardaí have revealed.

Drivers face an extra 355 new speed cameras on the roads, with a further 26 devices to be located in Dublin, 24 in Mayo, and 22 in Cork.

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

Firefighters, ambulance paramedics, and gardaí are being issued with tickets if caught exceeding speed limits.

More than 450 drivers were detected speeding between 7am yesterday morning and 7am today during 'Operation Slow Down'.

In relation to the article on the record and performance of GoSafe speed detection units by Gordon Deegan (Irish Examiner, February 24), the statistics quoted may be incorrect.

The firm that operates the network of speed camera vans for the Gardaí received monthly payments of €1.43m last year.

Fines for almost 4,500 fixed camera speeding detections have been dismissed over the last six years, a third of them during 2014, it has emerged.

A judge has criticised the process used by gardaí to issue speeding fines as "bureaucracy gone mad" and said that district courts have unfairly been targeted for criticism by a government minister for "systemic failures".

Interim garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has issued a second warning about garda numbers — saying they were now "very close" to a critical level.

A judge yesterday told a group of speed camera van staff it would be a total waste of time and public money for them to return to the district court until a High Court challenge to the system is ruled upon.

For decades, the whistleblower within Irish society has been vital in uncovering misbehaviour in institutions as varied as the Catholic Church, the Oireachtas, the banks and the Garda Siochána.

A situation whereby speed-camera operators who come to court but fail to prosecute alleged speeding motorists for “one bad reason after another” has been described as “a complete waste of public money” by one judge.

The annual number of breath tests carried out by gardaí at checkpoints reached a record low last year.

The privately run road safety camera system, which was supposed to be self-financing, cost the State €11m in 2012.

Gardaí tested 70,000 fewer motorists for drink-driving offences last year, despite an overall increase in the number of checkpoints.

The number of locations where speed cameras are used is to set to expand by 40% as gardaí report a large drop in fatal collisions in areas where they already operate.

Speed cameras are to target hundreds more accident blackspots as part of a country-wide road safety overhaul.

Just 154 out of the 75,000 motorists monitored were pulled over for speeding during the Garda Operation Slow Down last weekend.

Gardaí say the number of people caught speeding was cut in half during a crackdown last weekend.

A woman in her 80s died in West Cork yesterday afternoon after her car collided with a lorry.

A receiver has been appointed to the five-star Lyrath Hotel in Kilkenny by Bank of Scotland Ireland.

A DISTRICT Court judge has thrown out a number of cases relating to speeding offences, detected by the new mobile safety cameras.

COUNCILLORS have hit out at the deployment of a mobile speed camera van outside a graveyard in north Tipperary.

Gardaí have renewed their appeal for information on a suspected arson attack last night on a mobile speed camera van on the old N11 road.

GARDA Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has condemned an arson attack on a speed detection van and said it could have had “tragic consequences” for the staff member inside.

PROMINENT figures from the business and music worlds are among hundreds of people who have bought illegal speed camera detection devices to thwart the road-safety campaign launched earlier this week.

THOUSANDS of frustrated motorists caused a new speed camera website to crash during most of yesterday, just hours before the camera system went live at midnight.

THE roll-out of an extensive network of mobile speed cameras will begin nationwide on Monday.

A NETWORK of privately operated speed cameras will be rolled out by the middle of next month — but Gardaí claim it will not be a revenue-raising exercise.

MOTORISTS have no reason to fear that the introduction of speed cameras from next October will be used to generate extra revenue for Government.

A LONG-awaited speed camera initiative was rolled out yesterday.