New figures released by the Department of Transport show that over 25,000 penalty-point notices have been issued to people caught driving while holding a mobile phone.
The notices have been issued since the offence was introduced in July 2006.
Provisional figures that have been released show that 336 people died in road traffic collisions here last year, which is 29 fewer than in 2006. However 36 people died in road accidents last month, compared to 31 in December 2006.
Reacting to today's penalty point figures, a spokesperson for the Road Safety Authority, said that 'the international and national experience has been that as enforcement activity increases road deaths decrease. These figures show precisely this for Ireland.'
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland, Conor Faughnan of the AA said he was not surprised by the figures, which he said reflected that Ireland was a 'dysfunctional nation' in its usage of mobile phones.
'We just cannot let the thing down - if the 'phone rings we seem compelled to answer it,' he said.
'And there's even plenty of examples the guards will tell you of them having caught motorists texting while driving.'
There have been almost 600,000 different penalty point notices issued since the system was introduced in October 2002.
The most common offence is speeding, with just over 450,000 people being caught for that offence since the start of the system.
According to the department figures, driving without a seat belt is the second most common offence with just over 46,000 people having penalty point notices issued for this.
Overall 133,000 notices were issued to people without a valid driving licence number - meaning they either had no licence or had a foreign one.
Penalty point notices were issued to about 13,000 people for failing to obey traffic lights, and almost 10,000 were issued for crossing a continuous white line.
The least common offences include parking a vehicle in a dangerous position - for which 12 notices were issued - while there were two notices issued for driving a vehicle while unfit.
