Drink-driving rates have soared by more than a third this Christmas, official figures suggest.
Gardai said that 341 drink-drivers were caught in the first two weeks of its annual seasonal crackdown. This is a rise of 89 drink-drivers, or 35 per cent, compared with the same period last year.
The increase comes despite a heavily-publicised campaign warning about drink-driving launched by the gardai and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) at the start of the month.
Michael Finn, an assistant garda commissioner, said that it was obvious many drivers had taken no notice. “This significant increase in detections show increased gardai activity but disappointingly shows there are some who still refuse to heed all the safety messages,” Mr Finn said.
He said that 89 “high-risk” drivers had been taken off the road before a potential tragedy could have occurred.
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“I appeal again to every driver thinking of taking a chance with their life or someone else’s. Don’t do it — never, ever drink and drive,” he said. “We will continue to seek out these high-risk drivers over the coming weeks on a 24/7 basis, to make the roads safer for all road users.”
The number of road deaths has risen by more than a fifth this year compared with last year. So far 182 people have been killed in collisions around the country this year, which is an increase of 34 people, or 23 per cent, compared with the same time last year.
Brian Farrell, a spokesman for the RSA, said that he was disappointed to see so many people drink-driving. He said that part of the rise could be explained by the gardai’s improved intelligence and enforcement.
Part of that intelligence has been gleamed from the RSA’s analysis of road accident forensic investigation files, published for the first time in June this year. The report showed that rural parts of counties Donegal, Cork, Cavan and Galway had a disproportionate number of drink-driving cases that lead to fatal accidents.
The report has allowed the gardai to focus on specific areas of the country that are most at risk from drink-drivers, the gardai and RSA have said.
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Mr Farrell said that better enforcement was leading to better detection and that the rise in the numbers of drink-drivers being caught was not necessarily negative. “It’s difficult to give an exact breakdown just yet but gardai enforcement is part of the reason for the increase in cases,” he said.
Earlier this month, gardai said there would be an increase in the number of mandatory alcohol testing checkpoints around the country for six weeks from December 1. Gardai said there have been 3,517 mandatory alcohol testing checkpoints across the country since the start of the campaign, up from 2,420 for the same period last year.