Some 16,873 drivers were disqualified in 2022 and 2023 of which only 818 surrendered their licences as required by law. Of the remaining 16,055, just 26 were prosecuted and just one convicted. A significant number of the drivers – possibly as many as 40 per cent – never had a licence to begin with.
It is still reasonable to conclude that 10,000 people who should have been prosecuted for an offence were not held to account. To say that this undermines the credibility of the Government’s high-profile road safety strategy is something of an understatement. The Road Safety Authority along with the Department of Transport and the Garda appear to be at a loss as to how to explain this systemic failure, but one flaw stands out: the Garda Síochána is not automatically informed when a licence is not surrendered and thus an offence has been committed.
Resolving this anomaly is a relatively straight forward technical task. What is more difficult is tackling the lack of enthusiasm for enforcing the law that seems to permeate the relevant State bodies. READ MORE How the Saudis won back Biden Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Change is coming to the football championship structure .
.. again Godwin by Joseph O’Neill: Novel of narrative flair uses football in Africa as a prism Cash only, please: why you can’t buy some properties if you need a mortgage The Department of Transport is equivocal on the matter, saying the priority is ensuring disqualified drivers stay off.
