Some €30 million is to be made available next year for the establishment of a new dedicated Garda traffic corps, which hopes to reduce fatalities on roads by 25 per cent to below 300 by 2006.
By 2008 the Garda traffic corps will be 1,200 strong, resulting in around 340 members patrolling roads at any one time.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and the Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy, said the establishment of the new corps showed traffic management and saving lives on the roads were now top priorities.
Opposition parties said plans unveiled yesterday for the new corps were "too little too late", adding that the Government's original commitment on the issue in 2002 was that it would be in place within six months.
The new traffic corps will become operational early in the new year. The 531 gardaí already assigned to traffic units around the State will be joined by 32 new recruits. From January these gardaí will work exclusively on traffic duties. Currently such gardaí are assigned to other policing duties when the need arises.
A new Assistant Garda Commissioner is to be appointed in the new year and will assume responsibility for the new corps.
Around €11 million will be made available for salaries next year and a similar sum would be available for new cars and other equipment. The vehicles will have their own livery, distinguishing them from regular Garda cars.
Mr McDowell declined to disclose the total budget for the corps but sources within the Department of Justice put next year's expenditure at around €30 million.
Mr Conroy said that as well as reducing fatalities, the corps would help to alleviate congestion.
It would be divided into 40 units nationwide.
Mr McDowell said while progress had been slow on the establishment of the traffic corps, he could not move on the plan until he secured Government approval to recruit an extra 2,000 gardaí to the force.
He said he was confident the corps would be fully operational by 2008 and would prove effective.
It would number 563 next year, he confirmed. This would increase to 805 in 2006 and to over 1,000 in 2007.
By 2008 the corps would be fully established, numbering 1,200.
Around 600 of these would be drawn from the 2,000 additional new gardaí to be recruited into the force during that time-frame, he explained.
"I do believe that the plan we are following is one which has credibility about it and which has the resources available to it. Lives will be saved as a result of what has started here today," Mr McDowell said.
Commenting on the small number of new gardaí who would be assigned to the corps next year, he said: "If I were to ask the Garda Commissioner to apply more members to the traffic corps next year it would mean taking gardaí from rural areas and taking them away from city centre policing activity and taking them out of community policing and the like. There's a balance that has to be struck here."
Labour's spokesman on justice, Mr Joe Costello TD, said: "The Minister for Justice has a great habit of announcing and reannouncing the same plans and this is not the first time the Garda traffic corps has been proclaimed."
Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said Mr McDowell "was rebranding the existing 530 gardaí already on traffic duty in the various divisions around the country".
