The increased rate of death and injury on the roads around Christmas - much of it alcohol-related - means that an anti-drink-driving campaign has become an established necessity of the festive season. This year's effort, announced last week, will include the setting-up of more than 50,000 checkpoints throughout the Republic over the coming month to deter drinking and driving, and to catch offenders. More than 200 extra gardai will be drafted into Dublin to man road-checks, supplemented by 75 recruits from the Garda Training College.
A key component of the campaign will be an extension of "evidential" breath testing - meaning that readings from a new, more sophisticated breathalyser will be used in court proceedings. This will make convictions faster and more reliable, according to the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, who reiterated that "drink, speed and non-use of seatbelts" were the main factors in road deaths.
It is a message that cannot be repeated too often. In the four-week period beginning on December 6th last year, 820 people were arrested for drink-driving - the greatest number of arrests, predictably, coming in Christmas week. Forty-five people were killed on the roads last December, out of a total for the year of 458. That is a terrible figure, yet it was 2 per cent below that for 1997, and the total for 1999 is likely to show a further improvement. But there is no room for complacency, and the hype and hysteria engendered by the "millennial" Christmas and New Year could well translate into recklessness on the roads, especially among the young males who figure so prominently in late-night weekend crashes.
When the Government's comprehensive strategy, Road to Safety, was announced, the Taoiseach remarked that Ireland's rate of road deaths was an unacceptable social problem that had to be tackled "immediately and systematically". No one would contest this. But it is vital that politicians and police, as well as members of the public, should prove - in deed as well as word - that they are wholeheartedly committed to this aim, not just at Christmas, but all year round.