Minister hails road policing plan

A CONTROVERSIAL plan for frontline gardaí to do 30 minutes of roads policing a day is showing good results, the junior transport minister has claimed.

The move by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris for regular members to carry out tasks normally assigned to dedicated Road Policing Units came in response to concerns over a rising number of fatalities on the roads.

But it was branded a ‘PR exercise’ by ordinary members of the force. Yesterday however, Minister Jack Chambers insisted it was showing results.

‘I welcome the intervention of the Commissioner around providing an additional 30 minutes of roads policing... that’s already commenced,’ he told RTÉ’s Today With Claire Byrne. ‘And in fact the figures for the first 12 days of that are positive. There has been a 42% increase in the number of breath tests carried out, a 61% increase in the number of fixed-charge notices, and increased arrests for people who are driving when intoxicated.

‘So enforcement activity with that intervention by the Commissioner has improved in recent days, but we need to see much more significant levels of enforcement on our roads to uphold our existing road safety laws.’ Just last week, the directive for frontline gardaí to do 30 minutes of roads policing in a shift was described by the Garda Representative Association (GRA) as a ‘useless PR exercise’ that would distract members from their other work.

Mr Harris announced the new strategy amid a shortfall in dedicated traffic units, which are dealing with almost twice the number of vehicles on the roads compared to 15 years ago.

Mr Chambers has indicated the Road Safety Authority (RSA) will receive additional resources if that is what is needed to fulfil its remit.

The RSA has come in for criticism on foot of the rise in road deaths, which have reached 70 so far this year – 17 more than at the same point in 2023.