RSA refutes vintners' limit claims

THE ROAD Safety Authority (RSA) has refuted as “simply untrue” a claim by the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) that reducing the drink drive limit will have no impact on road safety.

In a letter circulated to Fianna Fáil TDs in July as part of a campaign against lowering the limit, the VFI said the “proposed reduction of the blood alcohol limit from 80mg to 50mg for experienced drivers will have absolutely no effect on the number of road deaths”.

This is one of nine arguments in a VFI letter, forwarded by Galway East Fianna Fáil deputy Noel Treacy to the RSA, against the need to reduce the limit. Deputy Treacy is the only TD to contract the RSA directly on this matter over the last 12 months.

The federation also claimed that lowering the limit will make “selling of the Lisbon Treaty more difficult in rural areas” and was likely to result in the loss of 5,000 jobs and “€100 million annually in increased social welfare payments”.

In its response, released under the Freedom of Information Act, the RSA said the federation’s claim that a lower limit will have no impact on road safety “is simply untrue”.

RSA chief executive Noel Brett said the VFI was seeking to disregard a “substantial body of scientific and medical research in the majority of other jurisdictions”.

Ireland and the UK are the only two European countries with a limit of 80mgs, Mr Brett said in his reply to deputy Treacy, adding that Northern Ireland is currently considering a reduction in its limit.

Road safety group Parc has invited senior politicians from the main parties to a meeting in Dublin today to discuss their concerns that lobbying by vintners may further delay the Bill.

The Government’s Road Safety Strategy had a target of a reduction in drink limits by June this year.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport said the draft legislation was complete and that Minister Noel Dempsey intended to bring it before the Oireachtas this autumn.

Publicans also claim in their briefing document that a lower limit is no longer required because “current measures in relation to road deaths are working”.

Mr Brett said while the 279 deaths on the roads last year was the lowest since 1959, the State had a road fatality rate of 63 people per million.

This is far higher than best practice countries such as Sweden with 43 deaths per million, he said.