More than 600 motorists were arrested for drink driving over the Christmas period.
Garda statistics published today show that in the week between December 29th and yesterday a total of 307 drink driving incidents were recorded across the State.
A total of 321 drink driving incidents were recorded in the previous week, between Monday December 22nd and Sunday December 28th, the figures show.
The new data represents a drop of approximately 50 arrests for a similar period last Christmas. In the final week of 2007, 301 people were arrested, while during the previous week, 357 incidents of drink-driving were recorded.
Figures for 2008 show there were 276 road deaths on the Republic's roads - the lowest annual total since records began more than 40 years ago. It shows a fall of 62 on the 2007 figure.
The road death total in the North for 2008 was 105, the lowest annual figure recorded by the PSNI.The figure is down from the 2007 total of 113 and a figure of 126 the year before. Road fatalities have been falling steadily in the North since 1999, when some 160 people were killed.
