A member of the Irish Road Victims' Association has accused “some TDs” of promoting drinks and saying that it is OK to have one drink and then drive.
“They say there’s no harm in that and then if someone dies in their constituency, they offer sympathy. That's no good to us. We want action. We want prevention.”
Leo Leighio was speaking on Newstalk Breakfast after details emerged that a motorist was arrested on average every 30 minutes over the bank holiday weekend for suspected drink or drug driving – with 181 arrested for the offence.
Mr Leighio, whose daughter Marsia was killed in a hit-and-run road accident in 2005, said that more needed to be done to educate people on the dangers of drink driving. Instead of doubling fines, penalty points should be doubled and cars confiscated, he urged.
Car manufacturers could also do more, he said. Why were cars being made that could be driven at very high speeds when the speed limit was 120 kilometres per hour? The technology existed where a car could not start if the driver did not pass a test similar to a breathalyser, it should be included in every car.
Mr Leighio said that the statistics from the weekend were not surprising because “the enforcement is not there". The gardaí simply did not have the numbers to monitor the roads more closely.
“Something has to be done between drink driving and speeding. The numbers are going sky high and the number of deaths have gone sky high, and that's the highest in over six years.”
Mr Leighio said that in Ireland there was a lax attitude to drink driving. “There is no question that when someone gets killed there’s an uproar over it for a couple of days and then it’s all forgotten. The law is too lackadaisical. The driver gets a slap on the wrist but the families are the ones who suffer for years and years, forever.”
