Road deaths - Urgent need to beef up traffic corps

Now that Frances Fitzgerald appears to have settled comfortably into her role as minister for justice, perhaps she might show more enthusiasm than her predecessor for increasing the number of Garda patrols on our roads.

It does not take a statistician to see that Garda manpower has been stretched beyond endurance and that, as a consequence, there are fewer patrols not only on the streets of our towns and cities but also on the roads.

The result is worrying and horrifying. After years of tremendous work by gardaí and the Road Safety Authority in reducing the appalling loss of life on our roads, the number of people killed in car accidents has risen again.