Random breath-testing delayed

Random breath-testing for drivers will not be in place until the end of next year and will only be in place then if the Government can overcome legal impediments, the Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen, has said.

The admission comes just two months after the then minister for transport, Mr Brennan, said there was still a chance random testing would be in place by Christmas.

In its Strategy for Road Safety 1998-2002, the Government originally promised that random testing would be in place in 1999. Speaking at the launch of the National Safety Council's Christmas anti-drink-driving campaign in Dublin yesterday, Mr Cullen said he was in talks with the Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady, on the issue of random testing.

The Road Traffic Bill was before the Dáil and he "hoped" to bring in another Bill next year that would provide for random testing. "There are a lot of legal issues. When we bring this legislation in I want to make sure that we have enough legal tests done ourselves to make sure that it stands up. I want that done, as the Attorney General does, as quickly as possible. I would hope I could do this next year, if we get all the legal matters cleared."

The legal drink-driving limit would also be reviewed in the context of the new legislation.

Problems relating to random breath-testing centre around the issue of the constitutional rights of the individual, and the Attorney General's office is drawing up provisions to ensure the legislation upholds these rights.

Figures provided yesterday by the NSC reveal the extent to which legal challenges to the Garda Intoxilyzer have affected the number of drink-driving convictions: this fell from almost 7,000 to 3,000 between 2001 and 2003, despite an increase in the number of fatalities on the Republic's roads.

The most pronounced reduction took place last year when 3,060 prosecutions were secured, a fall of almost 60 per cent on the 5,212 in 2002. Mr Cullen said he believed the greatly reduced rate of convictions had arisen because many cases detected in recent years had yet to be processed by the courts.

"These are judicial matters but the fact of the matter is that anybody that's caught for drink-driving will pay a very heavy price for it and ultimately you don't get away with this," he said.

NSC chairman Mr Eddie Shaw told The Irish Times: "It was in 2001 and 2002 that the Intoxilyzer was phased in across the country and that is when the legal challenges began."

Challenges to the Intoxilyzer had been dismissed in September and it would become clear in the months ahead whether people found drink-driving since 2001 had escaped prosecution or simply had their cases postponed. Any cases left pending until the Intoxilyzer challenge was resolved are not statute-barred, according to the Courts Service.

Mr Shaw said gardaí needed much stronger powers to tackle motorists who drink and drive. While recent legislative changes allowed gardaí to breathalyse a driver for breaking any of the rules of the road, it was now time for legislation that provided for random testing.