The idea that Ireland had a far worse road safety record than any other country was a myth, Mr Terry Sheridan, of the Department of the Environment, said at the weekend.
At the Motor Schools Association of Ireland's National Open Conference of Driving Instructors in Limerick, Mr Sheridan said the permanent core of driver testers would be increased to make the waiting period for tests more acceptable. The national average delay on driving tests is 25 weeks, is high compared to other countries, due to an increase in the number of drivers.
The number of people licensed to drive in the Republic has increased from 1.3 million in 1990 to 1.7 million last year. Ireland, while complying with most of the EU directive regulations on driving licences, is to introduce a theoretical written test on the rules of the road. He added: "There seems to be a myth that Ireland has a far worse road safety record than any other country, which is not the case. We are joint fifth among EU countries in having the lowest number of road fatalities per 100,000 population, which is the internationally used mechanism to measure it.
"Our rate is 12 per 100,000. Greece is 29, Portugal 21 and we are ahead of Austria, Belgium, Italy and Spain, and joint fifth with France and Germany. Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark are ahead of us. Things are not as doom and gloom as painted in some quarters."
However, Dr Ray Fuller, of the Department of Psychology at TCD, told the conference: "If we were asked a couple of centuries ago to design a highway system to get people from one end of this country to the other in a few hours rather than days, and if we came up with a system that every year killed over 400, injured 20,000 and maimed about 2,000 for life, we would almost certainly be sent back to the drawing board."