INDEPENDENT SENATOR Ivor Callely has been fined €60 for holding a mobile phone while driving. Mr Callely (52) denied the offence, and said he was using a hands-free kit when the incident occurred on October 11th, 2010.
Garda Keith Daly of Fitzgibbon Street Garda station gave evidence of stopping Mr Callely’s 2002 Jaguar car on Ballybough Road in Dublin.
He told Dublin District Court he saw Mr Callely driving with a mobile phone held to his right ear. He performed a U-turn before pulling Mr Callely over at Summerhill Parade. Mr Callely was talking on a hands-free kit when he stopped him, but the phone he had seen him holding was on the passenger seat.
Mr Callely, a former junior minister for transport, gave his address as St Lawrence’s Road, Clontarf, when pulled over.
He told the court he had been talking into a hands-free device. He accepted he had two mobile phones in the car.
It was put to Garda Daly that the phone on the passenger seat was broken and not the one Mr Callely had been using.
Garda Daly said he did not have to prove the phone was in use but that the defendant had been holding it while driving.
Mr Callely told the court he had not received the letter detailing the fixed fine at his Clontarf address because he did not log his mail. He agreed it would have been ridiculous not to have paid the fine rather than face the notoriety of dealing with the matter in court. Garda Daly told the judge he had an official record of the notice being sent.
Judge James Paul McDonnell accepted there were two phones in the car and he accepted the evidence that Mr Callely was holding a phone.
He fined Mr Callely €60 under Section 3(8) of the Road Traffic Act 2006.
Ivor Callely: said he was using hands-free device