Drink driving court proposed

The establishment of a dedicated court to deal exclusively with drink driving and drug driving offences is being examined by the Departments of Transport and Justice.

It is hoped that an "impaired driving court" would dramatically reduce the waiting times for drink driving and drug driving prosecutions while also freeing up gardaí who spend long hours in different courts waiting for such cases to be dealt with.

A series of case studies by gardaí earlier this year estimated that it can take between 41 and 100 garda hours to prosecute a drink driving case.

Head of the Garda Traffic Bureau, Chief Supt John Farrelly said last night that gardaí could spend "massive amounts of time" prosecuting such cases. "We have conducted a series of case studies and these showed that the time required from the initial detection to the case being completed was within that range.

"Now obviously the cases requiring 100 hours were at the outer range and not all of the time was spent in the [ witness] box. But there are instances where a case is adjourned and adjourned and adjourned." The Road Safety Authority discussed the merits of a special drink-driving court at its September board meeting and sent its recommendation to the Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen. He in turn is understood to have contacted the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, in relation to the proposal.

Drink-driving legislation is likely to remain among the most contested in the State, a fact acknowledged by the chief executive of the Road Safety Authority, Noel Brett. "What the board were interested in with this proposal was that if all the cases went to one court and one judge, would it be quicker? They were also keen to address the percentage of garda time lost sitting around in courts." Setting up a dedicated drink driving court would be an extension of the current system which sees a Dublin District court sit through the month of September to exclusively hear drink driving cases.

The volume of such cases is expected to increase dramatically in the coming months, as the sharp increase in drink-driving arrests by gardaí operating mandatory alcohol checkpoints is followed by prosecutions in court.

Mandatory breathtesting is thought to have contributed to an immediate reduction in road deaths. There were just 17 deaths in August and 23 in September.

However, since it was introduced in July this year, the new legislation has seen the number of motorists prosecuted for drink-driving almost double to around 400 each weekend. During the Bank Holiday weekend 459 people were arrested on suspicion of drink driving, according to garda figures.

Despite a provision in the mandatory breath testing legislation providing for administrative disqualifications for drink-driving offences on conviction, challenges to the new law are expected. The administrative disqualification was included to reduce the number of legal challenges to drink-driving prosecutions and reduce the burden on the courts. This only applies to first drink-driving offences.

Yesterday the head of the Garda Traffic Corps, Assistant Commissioner Eddie Rock, said a "hardcore" of motorists were not getting the message about drink driving. "It would be far preferable if that number [of arrests] was down and then we could say we had a far better compliance culture," he told RTÉ radio.