Random breath testing legal issues ‘can be resolved’
On the same day that a hard-hitting all-island campaign was launched to combat drink driving, Mr Ahern told the Dáil that the Ministers for Transport and Justice, Martin Cullen and Michael McDowell respectively, had been meeting to resolve the issue.
“They believe they will find a resolution,” Mr Ahern said in response to criticism from Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny of the Government’s record on road safety.
In its road safety strategy, the Government had promised that random breath testing would be in place before the end of 2006.
Mr Cullen, however, has expressed doubts about its introduction in recent weeks. Having received legal opinion from the Attorney General, he recently told the Oireachtas Transport Committee that the “core issue” involved was the question of proportionality versus individual rights afforded under the Constitution.
Proportionality is a legal concept requiring that laws are not excessively powerful in relation to the objectives they are meant to achieve.
Speaking at the launch of the latest drink driving campaign yesterday, Mr Cullen said: “If we can legislate to give the gardaí greater powers to impose roadside breath tests, the purpose would be to change the climate and culture among the public at large towards the practice of drinking and driving.
“If we cannot, we should remind ourselves that as things stand, a garda may request a breath sample where he/she forms the opinion that an intoxicant has been consumed, or where a collision has taken place, or where a road traffic offence has been committed.”
Provisional figures indicate that more than 12,000 detections for drink driving were made by gardaí last year.
The new campaign, a cross-border effort between the National Safety Council and Northern Ireland’s Department of the Environment, and supported by Axa Insurance, the gardaí and Police Service of Northern Ireland, is entitled Just One.
The key message is that it takes just one drink to impair driving and cause devastating consequences.
Central to the campaign is a graphic 60-second TV commercial which cost €600,000 to produce. It will be supplemented by press, public toilet and bus-shelter advertising.
The commercial was considered so graphic by London’s Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre that it will not be allowed run on British channels until after 9pm. However, it has been given a 7pm watershed in Ireland.
Of the 1,911 deaths on roads in the Republic between 2000 and 2004, 630 were due to drink driving.
As of 9am yesterday, 353 people had been killed on the roads this year - an increase of 20 on the corresponding period last year.
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