THE GARDAÍ HAVE said they will be out in force patrolling the streets and the roads this St. Patrick’s weekend to ensure that everyone has a “safe and fun” weekend.

Ahead of the bank holiday weekend, the gardaí are reminding road-users that there will be a high garda presence over the weekend “to tackle high risk behaviours, with a particular focus of non-compliance of seat belt-wearing”.

The gardaí said today during their briefing, where they were doing random seat-belt checks, that St Patrick’s Day is a fun weekend that everyone should enjoy.

Safety operations

They said that over the bank holiday weekend there will be several strategic road safety operation plans in place, as well as pro-active policing of the streets to ward off public order offences.

The gardaí said while they do not discuss the resources that will be operational during events like the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but said: “There will be sufficient numbers of gardaí present to effectively police the event and the weekend.”

Resources

Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan said that every year strategic plans are drawn up and put in place to police the large numbers of people in Dublin city centre.

“Every resource will be made available for this weekend,” he said.

“It is a well-rehearsed plan. Every year it is tweaked and modified depending on how successful it was the year before,” he added.

“Our message this weekend, is that we would love to get from the start of the weekend to the end with no fatalities,” said Superintendent O’Sullivan.

“People should be aware of other drivers, as the roads will be busy this weekend. Also, if there is good weather there will be more cyclists on the roads, so drivers should also be aware of that too. People should plan their journeys, and of course, people should never ever drink and drive or drug and drive,” he said.

He added: “Between 2007 to 2013, 17 people were killed and seriously injured on our roads on St. Patrick’s Day – we don’t want any this year.”

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