No Government has had the courage to deal with the level of carnage on the roads, the Dail was told.
Mr Brendan McGahon (FG, Louth) said there was "any amount of legislation" but it was never enforced.
"If we're serious about stemming the flow of young people to graveyards", he said, governors should be attached to cars to prevent them from going above the speed limit.
Nobody under 21 should be allowed to drive a car, he said. All the political parties should act as one on this issue.
He was speaking on the second evening of a two-day debate on a Fine Gael motion condemning the Government for failing to combat the carnage on the roads.
Mr Denis Naughten (FG, Longford-Roscommon) said road deaths in the Republic every year were equivalent to a 747 jet crashing and killing all on board and four 747s crashing and injuring all on board.
Mr Naughten said that at the present rate of road deaths 1,000 of this year's Leaving Cert class would be killed on the roads in the next eight years and almost half of those students, 29,000, would be injured.
Current delays and the lack of political will would see a further 1,000 people die before the implementation of the new penalty points system, a system in place in every other EU country.
Numerous governments had ignored the issue, and it was to this Government's credit that it was the first to publish a road safety strategy. However, Mr Naughten said, it had failed "dismally" to implement it.
He said if fully implemented the strategy could save up to 200 lives each year.
The issue was raised by Fine Gael's local government spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, in a motion condemning what she termed the Government's failure to combat carnage on the roads.
She said the death rate in the Republic was twice that of Britain, and there was a road death every 19 hours.
Ms Mitchell pointed out that 415 people died last year and there had been 54 deaths in the seven weeks of this year.
"If that number of people died each year or, indeed, in any one year as a result of any other sort of preventable accident, such as a fire or boat disaster, all the resources of the State would instantly be marshalled into action to prevent a recurrence."
Defending the Government's approach, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said there was no acceptable level of road deaths.
There had been criticism of the delay in introducing the penalty system but no one measure would deal with the level of fatalities. The national road strategy involved a wide range of measures with different policies and timescales. The penalty points system would be a valuable addition when introduced but would not be the only solution.
Mr Dempsey pointed out that more than 100 lives had been saved last year due to the implementation of the strategy. The Opposition might talk it down, but it was wrong for criticism of road safety to be based on false claims.
Ireland did not have the worst record in the EU, he insisted, and pointed out that last year gardai issued 224,000 on-the-spot fines for speeding and 84,000 for not wearing a seat belt.