One hundred and ninety precious lives were lost on Irish roads last year. We have a crisis when it comes to road safety. We also have a crisis when it comes to compliance with existing road traffic legislation. In December alone, there were 26,500 fines for speeding, thousands were fined for not wearing a seatbelt or for using a mobile phone, 765 were convicted of either drink or drug driving, and 3,000 vehicles were seized on the side of the road. That was in December alone. Driver behaviour matters. Enforcement shapes driver behaviour. Does the Taoiseach agree that the number one priority has to be strengthening the roads policing unit? It currently stands at fewer than 650, which is 400 fewer than 15 years ago.

First, I want to pay tribute to An Garda Síochána for the work it did over the Christmas period. It carried out a dedicated road traffic enforcement operation throughout that period, with 10,000 checkpoints, as the Deputy said, statutory and mandatory intoxicant testing and regular high-visibility policing checkpoints. It made 765 arrests, seized nearly 3,000 vehicles for different offences under the Road Traffic Act and detected nearly 26,000 speeding offences. At the moment, as the Deputy said, there are some 638 gardaí assigned to roads policing. Recruitment is continuing apace and is accelerating, so additional garda numbers will become available to be deployed to priority areas. My view is that, over time, we will be in a position to assign more gardaí to roads policing units. Twenty-nine gardaí were assigned to the DMR roads policing unit last year. Last June, 26 gardaí were assigned to roads policing units in the eastern and north-western regions. Diaidh ar ndiaidh, mar a deir muid, beidh na huimhreacha ag méadú. We will increase the numbers.