The Government has failed to implement key road safety proposals to reduce deaths more than two years after announcing the measures, it has emerged.
Finance has not been provided for a promised £6 million information technology system to handle fixed and other camera evidence of speeding and careless driving.
Only eight fixed cameras are in place on the main northern and western routes out of Dublin. And the Department of the Environment has not provided the computer technology to handle the increase in prosecutions.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, announced this new technology as part of the programme for reducing road deaths under the Road Safety Strategy document launched in August 1998. The provision of the computer system was described in the 1998 document as a "priority".
A spokeswoman for the Department of the Environment said yesterday they were awaiting the outcome of a second report by the Road Traffic Safety Section in the Department on the issue. A "first report" was completed last year and the "second report" was due out in the next month or so, the spokeswoman said.
The provision of the computer system to handle the greatly increased number of summonses and fines will apparently have to await the outcome of the Department's "second report".
The computer system would also be needed to introduce the points system whereby drivers' licences would be endorsed for offences, affecting their insurance payments.
Yesterday the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, announced that as a result of the failure to reduce road deaths his force would be increasing activity to enforce traffic laws later this month. He made no reference to the Government's position on the £6 million computer system.
However, in an address to the annual conference of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), he said that despite considerable efforts over the past four years there had been no significant decrease in the number of road deaths.
This was despite the imposition of some 500,000 on-the-spot fines for road traffic offences since 1997. Most of these fines were £50 tariffs for speeding.
He told the GRA delegates: "This is a real area of concern to me and although road deaths are holding stable our performance in this area is pretty poor.
"Since 1997 the number of people injured on our roads has decreased from 13,000 to fewer than 10,000 but the number of deaths has not reduced. This is the reality despite our efforts, initiatives, research, resources and hard work."
The Commissioner pointed out that of the 500,000 on-the-spot fines, 64,000 had been issued this year. Despite this, the recent survey by the National Safety Authority showed that drivers continued to breach the speed limits.
Since 1997 some 23,519 people were arrested for drink driving, including 2,514 so far this year. Last year's total of 9,700 people prosecuted for drink driving was the highest figure recorded. Some 25,000 people have been fined for not wearing seat-belts.
He said analysis carried out by the Garda National Policy Bureau showed that 28 people had died in "one-vehicle accidents" - usually meaning a car driving into a ditch, wall or tree.
A third of road deaths happened between midnight and 6 a.m., when traffic was lightest. Some 22 per cent of fatalities happened between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. And 44 per cent of fatalities involved people aged between 16 and 30.
He added: "We are, at present, re-evaluating our approach to enforcing traffic legislation . . . We intend in the coming weeks to radically change our method of policing traffic in Dublin, with other changes to some of the other five regions."
There has been a continuation in the downward trend in crime that began four years ago, he said. Statistics for 1999 also show that detection rates are "holding stable".
Garda action against organised crime gangs had resulted in significant drug seizures and antiterrorist activity had resulted in "significant" successes.
He added: "However, we must not become complacent. It takes a major effort by all of us to achieve the results we have achieved in recent years.
"We must expect that the decrease in crime will bottom out. To maintain 1999 figures will, in my view, be a major achievement."