Garda shock at number of drink drivers

Date Published: 02-Dec-2008

Senior Garda chiefs have expressed ‘serious disappointment’ at a dramatic increase in drink driving arrests across the city over the past 10 days.

Since the introduction of the Christmas Garda drink driving campaign on November 21, there has been a staggering 21 arrests for drink driving up until yesterday morning.

Most of those arrests have been in the greater city area but Gardai are shocked at the seemingly blatant disregard that motorists are showing for the drink driving laws.

Almost all of the arrests have been during the late night or early morning ‘socialising’ hours – the detections have been achieved through specialist drink driving checkpoints, the notice of erratic driving and in the aftermath of accidents.

Drivers continue to be caught primarily during the peak weekend period – there were five drink driving arrests last Saturday and four more on Sunday.

What is baffling Gardai is the fact that motorists, after a period of …