Traffic fatalities - Streamline road safety responsibility

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell has announced that the Traffic Corps is to be doubled to some 1,100 gardaí to stop the carnage on our roads.

The extra 550 gardaí are already being trained at Templemore, and they will be assigned to the Garda Siochána in 2006.

The introduction of the penalty points system by the Department of Environment in 2002 marked a dramatic decline in the death rate on our roads, but the figures have been creeping back up for some time.