The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, is to make representations to the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, requesting that gardaí pursue more drug drivers in the courts.
Mr Brennan said driving under the influence of drugs was now a serious problem in Ireland and must be tackled.
However, the chairman of the National Safety Council, Mr Eddie Shaw, said Ireland is 10 years behind international best practice on tackling the problem of drug driving. He said the latest figures for drug driving, released by UCD's Medical Bureau of Road Safety yesterday, underlined the need for the Government to tackle the issue.
"We've got to adequately resource a road safety programme which is comprehensive. It's not just about funding advertising or funding education. It has got to fund high-level, consistent enforcement.
"We're not just one step behind, in some cases we are up to 10 years behind what you would call global best practice, these would be countries like the UK, Sweden, Finland, parts of Australia, Holland, parts of Canada.
"We can learn from them. Some of them already have roadside (drug) testing programmes in place because they are aware of the drug-related issue. From our point of view, looking at those countries is like looking at the future."
UCD's Medical Bureau of Road Safety in 2000 and 2001 tested 2,000 urine and blood samples taken from motorists suspected of driving while intoxicated. Some 1,000 samples revealed legal limits of alcohol or no alcohol at all. However, 679 of these tested positive for drugs.
Mr Brennan said while there were high levels of awareness surrounding drink-driving most motorists would be horrified to think they were sharing the roads with somebody on cocaine.
At present it is against the law to drive while intoxicated, this covers drugs as well as alcohol. However, if a drug driver is to be convicted in the courts the arresting garda is required to form a view that the driver was intoxicated by drugs to such an extent their driving was impaired.
While blood alcohol levels assist gardaí in the case of drink-drivers, there is no such test for those under the influence of drugs. However, Mr Brennan said gardaí should not be deterred by this.
Prof Denis Cusack, director of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at UCD, was one of the authors of the report released yesterday.
He said that in the last two years the most "dramatic" element of his team's research was the increase in the number of driver blood samples testing positive for cocaine.
