Law to allow mandatory drug-driving tests by gardaí under consideration

The Government is to consider introducing legislation that will allow gardaí conduct the same mandatory checks for drug driving as currently happens with drink driving. Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said there was an “anomaly” in the legislation and that needed to be comprehensively addressed.

Mr Martin, speaking to reporters in advance of a Brexit forum in Iveagh House, was responding to the Government report on speed limits which was published on Thursday.

Its principal recommendations are for a significant lowering of speed limits across all regional roads: from 100km/h to 80km/h on secondary roads: from 80km/h to 60km/h on rural roads; and from 50km/h to 30km/h in urban areas.

Mr Martin honed in on the increasing incidence of drug-driving in his comments. “There is evidence emerging of increased drug-taking and there is a need for legislation around the mandatory nature of checking for drugs,” he said.

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Coronal data compiled for the Government and the An Garda Síochána in recent years has seen a marked increase in the presence of drugs in driver fatalities.

Some 37 per cent of drivers who died in road accidents between 2015 and 2019 had a positive toxicology for alcohol. A total of 13 per cent of fatalities had cocaine in their system; 11 per cent had benzodiazepines; seven per cent had cannabis and seven per cent had opioids. In all, 14 per cent had a positive toxicology for alcohol and at least one other drug. However, researchers pointed out that a positive toxicology did not necessarily imply impairment.

At present, a Garda must perform a mandatory test for alcohol at the scene of a road accident. A drugs test is only carried out at the discretion of the officer.

Minister of State for Road Safety, Jack, Chambers, said he was committed to bringing reform so that mandatory drug testing would take place the sites of serious collisions in the same way as mandatory alcohol testing takes place.

“The new roadside drug wipe equipment which is being used by the Gardai for the last number of months enables this reform,” he said.

“I have asked my officials in the Department of Transport to progress work on this so the necessary legislative changes can be drafted. I will be raising this as a priority reform”

He said drug driving was as serious an issue as drink driving and the legislation needed to reflect this. “Drug drivers must face the full consequences of the law,” he added.

Mr Martin said that some of the road speed changes would require legislation. He said that all the recommendations would be implemented by the Government.

Asked about another recommendation, the introduction of “average speed” cameras on stretches of motorways and national roads, Mr Martin said there already had been an increase of cameras on the roads.

The Speed Limit Review relied on international research which pointed to a large number of fatalities occurring on single-carriage roads, and on undivided roads where vulnerable users such as cyclists and pedestrians were not separated from vehicles.

As of Wednesday, 130 people had been killed on Irish roads in 2023 compared to 105 for the same period in 2022, and 94 in 2019, the last comparable year before Covid restrictions were introduced.