Sir, - On a number of occasions recently, while driving around Limerick City, I was stopped by members of the Gardai and Limerick Corporation and/or County Council officials who were conducting a traffic survey. I was then questioned as to my movements.
After this had occurred on a number of occasions I began to tire of it and asked the Garda on duty, out of curiosity, why I was being stopped and under what legislation. I was informed that I was not being stopped by the Garda but directed into a particular traffic lane by him and that it was the Corporation and/or County Council officials who were stopping me. Questions by me to, the officials elicited the information that I was under no obligation to answer any of their questions, though they would only tell persons who objected to their queries of this.
A telephone call to the Limerick County Council official supervising the survey met with the response that he was sure the checkpoints were legal, but he could not inform me of the piece of legislation under which they were mounted. Nor would he undertake to have his officials inform the persons they had stopped that there was no obligation to answer the questions when stopped, quoting that "ignorance of the law was no defence".
This raises, in my mind, a few important civil liberties questions: What right in law have these officials to stop traffic? If they do not have a right to stop traffic, why are the Gardai assisting them to break the law? What is done with the information gathered? What, if any, legislation protects the privacy of persons questioned such as is provided by the national census? I think we should be told. Yours, etc.,
Meelick,
Co Clare.