The Road Safety Authority says 194 people have died on the countries roads so far this year. That's up 9 on figures from last year.

One in 20 motorists in Ireland has been caught drink driving over the past 10 years. The statistic covering fully-licenced drivers is contained in figures compiled by the Irish Independent.

An average of 51.5 motorists per 1,000 people in the population have been caught - but that figure is far higher in some counties.

The county which saw the most drink driving detections between 2004 and 2014 was Co Monaghan - with 98 drivers per 1,000 of population, almost twice the national average.

The lowest number of drink driving detections was in Co Roscommon.

Almost 7,000 detections for drink driving were made in Galway, while there were more than 100 drug driving detections in the past decade.

This compares to 1,300 drug driving detections in Dublin, 162 in Westmeath and 145 in Clare.

Gardaí have carried out 365,000 roadside breath tests so far this year, and mounted 65,000 checkpoints.

Research carried out by the Road Safety Authority and the Health Service Executive (HSE) suggests that alcohol plays a part in more than a third of fatal crashes.

Brian Farrell from the Road Safety Authority spoke to Jonathan Healy on Lunchtime today and said that it is worrying that the number of people who have died on the roads is up on last year, 194 this year up on 190 last year: