Brennan says death toll on roads 'totally unacceptable'

The Minister of Transport, Mr Seamus Brennan, has described the death toll on the Republic's roads as "totally unacceptable".

He was speaking after three people, including a seven-year-old boy, were killed in road traffic accidents overnight. This brought to nine the number of people killed on the roads over the bank holiday weekend.

Mr Brennan today pledged that a penalty points system for motorists would be phased in from October and a separate police traffic section would be introduced next year in a bid to improve road safety and reduce deaths.

"I am determined that everything available to the State is applied to make sure that people slow down and we start to save some lives," he said.

Labour’s party spokesperson on Transport, Ms Joan Burton, said that Mr Brennan had executed a "shocking policy u-turn" and effectively abandoned all notion of specific targets for reducing road deaths.

"The five-year road safety strategy that ends this year has a definite target to cut annual road deaths to no more than 378. Obviously this policy has failed spectacularly as can be seen from the scale of road deaths even this weekend," said Ms Burton.

Earlier, an investigation was begun after a 51-year-old woman died when a Garda patrol car and a hackney cab in which she was a passenger collided.

The cab driver and two gardaí were injured when the vehicles collided at the junction of the N4 in Lucan, Co Dublin, just before 11 p.m. last night.

Eight-year-old Niall Hogan, with an address at St John's Terrace, Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, died after being knocked down by a car in his home town yesterday. It is understood that he ran into the path of the vehicle on the outskirts of the town. He died at the scene.

A 58-year-old man died following a two car collision in Newrath, Co Waterford, shortly after midnight.

Brothers Mr John and Mr David Phelan, aged 26 and 24, also died over the weekend when their motorbike was involved in a collision with a car near Fethard, Co Tipperary, on Sunday.