Campaign to urge drivers not to drink at all

Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy has urged Christmas party-goers to report drink-drivers, as part of the new road safety campaign launched yesterday.

The new campaign, which incorporates the annual Christmas anti-drink-driving campaign, is aimed at persuading drivers not to have any alcohol at all, if they intend to drive a car.

Currently the legal limit is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - about enough to allow one drink - but the National Safety Council yesterday produced research to show that "just one drink impairs driving". The council also launched its "just one" advertising campaign designed to show that "just one" drink can have fatal consequences.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Conroy said detection of drink-drivers was 15 per cent up on last year, while the numbers detected over the recent bank holiday weekend were 46 per cent higher than in the same period in 2004.

Describing transgressors as "oblivious to the moral and social contract we all have with our fellow citizens", Mr Conroy said: "make that call, you could save a life".

Asked about complaints from the insurance industry and others that the Garda needed more resources, Mr Conroy said he "would never refuse extra resources". But he added that he had been given an extra €1 million to buy new Garda cars, many of which would be unmarked.

While he agreed the introduction of random breath-testing would help, he said gardaí could get blood samples from hospitals and could test drivers where they believed alcohol had been consumed. He pointed out the traffic corps will be increased by more than 50 per cent next year.

Mr Conroy's call for people to report drink-drivers was echoed by Eddie Shaw, chairman of the National Safety Council, who said it could save lives. But he said he did not know "if we will ever get the legislation we need to enable drink-driving to be detected and prosecuted on the level it needs to be. It seems the protection our Constitution understandably provides to the individual citizen, is indirectly exchanged for about 140 lives every year and an unknown number of serious injuries."

Mr Shaw criticised the drinks industry's campaign to encourage consumers to drink sensibly. "In this country that is not good enough. Many do drink sensibly but then they drive home. That is not sensible, it can kill. Today we challenge the vintners and the drinks industry to add the line 'never, ever drink and drive', to their marketing message."

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said that by midnight on Monday, 353 people had died in the Republic in road collisions, 22 more than last year. He said he was preparing legislation to enable random breath-testing but it needed to be balanced against individual constitutional rights.