EU cross-border road enforcement plan stalls

A European Commission plan to introduce cross-border enforcement of road traffic laws is "hugely complex" and would cause Constitutional issues here , an Oireachtas committee heard today.

The Department of Transport told the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny that a directive, which was an initiative of the French presidency last year, was “hugely complex” and would have Constitutional issues for Ireland were it brought into effect.

The directive would allow drivers of foreign-registered vehicles to be prosecuted by Irish authorities using data supplied by authorities in the driver’s home country. It would specifically target speeding, drink driving, not wearing seatbelts and driving through red lights. Offenders details would be provided by other member-states and a fine would be sent in the post. The same would apply to Irish drivers committing offences abroad.

However, Department of Transport official Eilish Kennedy told the committee the “core difficulty” was that under Ireland’s legal system, and unlike other countries, all offences under the Road Traffic Acts are criminal offences.

“In effect this means that a person accused of a road traffic offence has the right to and must be given the option of appearing in court.

“We do not have the option of applying an administrative fine, or penalty, such as was envisaged in the draft directive.

“Implementation of the draft directive would therefore not be a question of simply changing road traffic law but would have constitutional implications.” She said discussion among member states last year presented “serious and fundamental difficulties” with the plan and the directive was not on the work programme for the current Czech presidency.

Fine Gael TD Damien English said the complexity of the matter should not be an obstacle “even if there are constitutional issues. So be it.