Donohoe criticises ‘utterly unacceptable’ circumvention of road laws

COLIN GLEESON

Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe has said the practice of circumventing road safety laws is “utterly unacceptable” and “at odds” with the progress the State has made in relation to road deaths.

New figures published in The Irish Times on Thursday show more than 500 motorists were disqualified from driving at the time they received convictions for dangerous driving causing serious injury or death over recent years.

Campaigners have said the figures raise fresh concerns over gaps in road safety laws just days after it emerged that 40 per cent of drink-driving cases are resulting in convictions.

Speaking on the Today with Sean O'Rourke show, Mr Donohoe said motorists who continue to drive despite being disqualified were engaged in "profound and unacceptable behaviour".

“The kind of behaviour that the information describes is utterly unacceptable,” he said. “It’s completely at odds with the progress we have made on road safety, and that’s why the law was changed.

He said “we do have a systemic issue” where a person is in court for the collection of road traffic offences, or a serious warning due to the non-production of drivers’ licences, are successful in avoiding penalty points due to the non-production of their licence.

Mr Donohoe said that since the law was changed to give gardaí the power to immediately arrest anybody caught driving with a disqualified licence, charges have been brought against 448 people for the offence.

“The gardaí have now initiated prosecutions against a group of people who did not produce their driver’s license while in court,” he said. “They are now treating that as an offence, and hearings in relation to that are now going to take place in November within the courts.

“We have a significant piece of work under way to come up with an integrated database so that if someone is in court and does not produce their driver’s license, the judge would be able to apply penalty points to their license by just having the details of the vehicle.