A former drugs officer has called for powers to crack down on drug-driving.
Det Sgt Con Lee, who led the drugs squad in Sligo for nine years until his recent transfer to other duties, said motorists under the influence of drugs, particularly cocaine, are as big a menace as drink-drivers, yet gardaí are powerless to do anything about it.
He said: "Drug-driving is a far greater problem than is acknowledged. A lot of people are driving after consuming cocaine and all types of drugs.
"We need powers to act against it, such as we have for the drink-driving campaign. We presently have no way of testing somebody for drugs at the roadside.
"Somebody who comes up to a Garda checkpoint may be off their head with cocaine and all we can test them for is alcohol."
He said that other countries, including Australia and Canada and parts of the UK, have mandatory roadside drugs tests. He believed that if similar measures were available in Ireland there would be an overall decrease in the numbers of drug users, especially if penalties included driving bans.
Sgt Lee rejected local criticisms that the drug squad in Sligo is under-resourced. He said that in the past week alone 30 people had been searched for drugs in the town and four were arrested - two for cocaine possession and two for possession of more than 200 ecstasy tablets.
But he said gardaí would also like greater powers to search houses. Under current legislation they had to get a court warrant before they could raid a house if they believed drugs were in use there.
He conceded there was also a manpower difficulty when they had information about drugs parties.
He said: "You get information that there is a party, there's possibly cocaine or other drugs at it. You have to go and get a search warrant and go to a house at three or four in the morning with 30 or 40 people at the party.
"You need 10 or 15 guards to go into that location to search every individual. It's just not practical. We don't have those numbers in a lot of Garda stations."