Drink and drug driving at Christmas: arrests, crime figures and risk in charts

Garda campaign results, monthly Garda arrest figures, CSO recorded crime and RSA research show how many people are caught driving under the influence, when it peaks, and who is most at risk.

Of the drivers killed on Irish roads between 2016 and 2020 who had a toxicology test result, 35% had alcohol in their system. That is the finding of Road Safety Authority (RSA) research using coroners' records.

Christmas is when An Garda Síochána runs its biggest road safety campaign. This page brings together the official figures on drink driving and drug driving: arrests, recorded crime, and what the RSA has found about crashes involving alcohol.

765 arrests in the Christmas 2025 campaign

The Garda Christmas Road Safety Campaign ran from 1 December 2025 to 5 January 2026. Gardaí arrested 765 people for driving under the influence of an intoxicant. Just over half (56%) were mainly for alcohol and 44% mainly for drugs.

Gardaí ran nearly 10,000 checkpoints during the campaign, including Mandatory Intoxicant Testing (MIT) checkpoints. At an MIT checkpoint, gardaí can breath-test or saliva-test any driver without first suspecting them of an offence.

The campaigns ran for different lengths of time, so the totals are not a strict like-for-like comparison. The 2024/25 campaign ran for 38 days, the longest of those with published dates. The 2023/24 figure covers only the first four weeks; the same Garda report also gives an early figure of more than 800 arrests for the campaign.

December 2025 was the peak month for intoxicated driving

The Garda Commissioner reports monthly figures to the Policing and Community Safety Authority. Of the 2025 months published, December had the highest number of intoxicated driving incidents, at 796. January had the lowest, at 595.

Of the 796 incidents in December 2025, alcohol was a factor in 470, drugs in 294, and both in 32. Gardaí carried out 4,869 MIT checkpoints that month, with 20,880 breath tests and 1,481 saliva tests for drugs.

Recorded drink and drug driving offences have edged down since 2021

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) publishes recorded crime figures based on Garda records. It counted 6,670 incidents of driving or being in charge of a vehicle while intoxicated in 2025. That compares with 7,458 in 2021.

The latest CSO figure shows a small rise: 6,922 incidents in the 12 months to June 2026, up 5% on a year earlier. Drug driving made up about a quarter of recorded cases in 2024.

Drug driving is a growing share of arrests

In the 2022/23 Christmas campaign, 136 of 745 arrests (18%) were for drug driving. By 2025/26, 44% of arrests were mainly for drugs. Across 2024 as a whole, Garda operational figures show 4,784 cases of driving under the influence of alcohol and 2,887 of drugs.

The people arrested differ by age. Gardaí say over 40% of drivers arrested for drug driving in 2025 and early 2026 were aged 21 to 30. For drink driving, the largest group, 29%, were aged 35 to 45.

Up to 30 November 2025, gardaí had detected nearly 8,000 drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs that year. For June bank holiday weekends, Garda analysis found that the most arrests for drink and drug driving were made between 9pm and 3am.

Alcohol-related crashes cluster at night and at weekends

The RSA studied surviving drivers in fatal or serious injury collisions from 2021 to 2025. Of those, 63% were tested for alcohol, and 7% (384 drivers) tested positive for alcohol. These collisions killed 38 people and seriously injured 264 other road users.

• 84% of the alcohol-positive drivers were male, and 57% were aged 16 to 35.
• 54% of their collisions happened between 8pm and 4am.
• 51% happened on a Saturday or Sunday.
• Among drivers killed with alcohol in their system in 2016 to 2020, 93% were male and 76% were under 45.

In that earlier study, 219 of the 600 people killed on the roads who had a toxicology result tested positive for alcohol, or 36.5%. Almost two thirds of those deaths (64.8%) happened between 9pm and 6am, and three quarters of the people who died were under 45.

The same RSA report found that July, not December, had the most alcohol-related road deaths in 2013 to 2017. Arrest figures show when people are caught, which is not the same as when alcohol-related crashes happen.

“Alcohol impairs judgement, reaction time and decision-making, even on short journeys.”Anne Graham, Chairperson, RSA, joint Garda and RSA appeal, 28 May 2026