Brennan to press gardaí on points as deaths surge

TRANSPORT Minister Seamus Brennan is to ask gardaí to step up the enforcement of the penalty points system amid growing concern about the rising death toll on the roads.

The minister will meet senior gardaí this week following another weekend of carnage which left seven people dead, five in the Republic and two in the North.

Mr Brennan is concerned at the rise in road fatalities over the last two months. The death toll is up 35% on the same period last year.

"He is disappointed at the rise. But he still feels that penalty points has and is still saving lives and reducing serious injuries," said a Department of Transport spokesman.

"He will be meeting senior gardaí and is anxious to talk to them about enforcement and the level of visibility of gardaí. While accepting gardaí are putting in the effort, he will stress the need to keep the pressure on penalty points."

The recent spate of deaths marks a worrying turnaround from the first four months of 2003, when the number of deaths fell dramatically.

At the end of April, there were 34 fewer people dead compared to the same last year. Yesterday, that figure stood at 15, with 173 deaths so far this year, compared to 188 in 2002. If the trend continues, this year's death toll could be close to, or higher than, last year.

Fine Gael transport spokesperson Denis Naughton said the initial fear factor in relation to the penalty points system, introduced last October, has worn off.

"We definitely could end up back to where we were, before the penalty points system was introduced. No one would like to see road fatalities go any further, but it's definitely shaping up that way now.

"People have now copped on. The penalty points system is not been enforced and the gardaí are not been given the resources to enforce it."

He called for the introduction of fixed speed cameras and greater resources for gardaí.

Pat Costello, chief executive of the National Safety Council, said the recent rise in road deaths was a matter for concern.

But he added that road fatalities for May 2002 were exceptionally low, while the figure for May 2003 was exceptionally high.

He said he was disappointed that the third planned penalty point - for not wearing a seat belt - which was due to be introduced tomorrow had now been put back until the end of July. This is because of problems in printing the tickets used by gardaí.

This is yet another setback for the troubled, manually-operated system, which is weighed down by a backlog of over 20,000 unprocessed speeding detections.