Road deaths will increase if safety measures not funded, says council

Recent reductions in road deaths cannot be sustained with the current "woeful and inadequate" Government investment in road safety, the National Safety Council said yesterday.

In a hard hitting annual review, the council claimed the State had saved about €100 million since the introduction of penalty points but insisted that this would not be maintained without further investment.

The council called on the Department of Finance to "show some leadership" and provide funding for Garda enforcement measures such as computerised penalty points, State-wide speed cameras and random breath-testing. These elements were first promised as far back as 1998.

The chairman of the National Safety Council, Mr Eddie Shaw, said the year-on-year reduction of 72 road deaths and up to 360 serious injuries since the introduction of penalty points in November, had proved beyond doubt that the road death toll could be reduced. Mr Shaw said the 50 per cent drop in admissions to the Mater Hospital's spinal injuries unit, which followed the introduction of penalty points had resulted in cost savings to the Departments of Health, Social Welfare and Enterprise Trade and Employment of about €100 million. But he warned this could not be sustained without further investment and said it "really does fall to the Department of Finance to participate" as current funding was "woeful and inadequate".

Mr Shaw revealed that the Department of Finance had told an Oireachtas committee in a one-page submission that as far as it was concerned investment in road safety was simply classed as expenditure.

This, he insisted, failed to take into account a report from economist Dr Peter Bacon that predicted a return of eight to one for every euro invested in road safety.

The review noted the Republic has about 108 road deaths per million persons, a figure which ranked about seventh in the EU. The UK leads in road safety with just 60 deaths per million and on this basis the review concludes the Republic could save a further 150 lives and prevent up to 750 serious injuries each year.

"We have the capability to save many, many lives but it requires a fundamental change in the analysis of public expenditure," Mr Shaw said. The review says road safety measures need to be budgeted and evaluated as an investment programme. It argues that a funding programme should be agreed for the three year duration of the next strategy. Increases in Garda costs to implement the programme were estimated at about €60 million.

The review concluded that alcohol abuse was a contributory factor in about 40 per cent of deaths due to house fires in the past two years.