THERE has been a drop in the number of drink and drug driving checkpoints across West Cork prompting calls to address the decline.

Garda figures show mandatory drink and drug testing was down 7% across Cork county last year compared to 2024 – yet Cork was the second worst county for road fatalities in 2025.

In the last quarter of 2024, 1,835 checkpoints were carried out across the county. During the same months of 2025, the number fell to 1,704.

The decline in checkpoints has led to calls for increased Garda visibility on Irish roads against a backdrop of a spike in road deaths.

Ireland South MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú is leading these calls to action.

She analysed the number of garda checkpoints between 2019 and 2025 to highlight significant increases in drug driving figures.

Between July and September 2019, gardaí carried out 12,930 checkpoints in Ireland. By the same period in 2025 the number fell to 11,958, a drop of 7.5%.

‘The figures speak for themselves. In 2019, we had 140 deaths, but in 2025, we had 185 deaths. Drug driving is out of control,’ she said.

Ní Mhurchú stressed that with road deaths at unprecedented levels, garda management should be increasing the number of mandatory checkpoints on Irish roads, not decreasing them.

‘Figures show a 37% increase in cases coming before our district courts for drug driving in the first 10 months of 2025,’ she said.

‘This should be evidence enough for gardaí to launch a massive increase in drug and drink driving checkpoints, but they have done the opposite and reduced them.

I want to know the rationale for it.’

Ní Mhurchú has called for an increase in the number of checkpoints across the country.  

‘If it is a resource issue, lets deal with it but it must be pointed out that there were more gardaí in 2025 than there were in 2019,’ she pointed out.

Last year saw 188 road deaths recorded in Ireland, according to the Road Safety Authority (RSA). Cork was the second-worst county for road fatalities in 2025.