Drink drivers avoid jail in Kerry courts
Wednesday September 08 2010
A KERRY court district is the only jurisdiction in the country in which no one was sentenced to jail for drink driving offences last year, The Kerryman can reveal. Not a single offender was imprisoned on a drunk driving conviction in the Kerry Court district covering Tralee, Castleisland, Dingle, Killarney, Kenmare, Killorglin and Cahersiveen during 2009, according to statistics released by the Court Service of Ireland under a Freedom of Information request.
Neither were any drink drivers given suspended prison sentences in the same period, the Court Service records show.
The jurisdiction, known as district 17 under the Court Service administration, dealt with a total of 313 cases of drunken driving in 2009. Of these, 29 were dismissed, 274 resulted in disqualifications from driving and 277 defendants also received fines. Ten of the cases were struck out.
District 17 also had the lowest number of guilty pleas last year from people accused of drink driving. Only three of the 313 cases (one per cent) involved a guilty plea. However, The Kerryman understands that this figure may refer solely to the number of guilty pleas entered when a case first comes before the court. In many cases, guilty pleas are not entered until right before a case is to be heard.
In court district number 13 â?” governing most of the northern half of the county and West Limerick, taking in Listowel, Abbeyfeale, Newcastle West, Rathkeale and Killmallock District Courts â?” nine offenders were sentenced to jail for driving while drunk and five offenders received suspended prison sentences. In total 195 drink driving cases were brought before court district 13 last year, with nine of these cases dismissed and five struck out.
Eight of the 195 cases before district 13 (4.1 per cent) involved a guilty plea.
Conviction rates for drink driving in both court districts covering Kerry were broadly in line with the national average. District 13 returned a conviction rate of 93 per cent for drink driving offences over the year while district 17 had a conviction rate of 88 per cent.
In terms of dismissals, district 17 was above the national average of 6.9 per cent, with 9.2 per cent of cases dismissed. 4.6 per cent of drunken driving cases that came before district 13 resulted in a dismissal.
Judges may impose prison sentence on firsttime drunken driving convictions. This rarely, if ever, happens however with most prison sentences passed down only after it is shown by the State â?” following the conviction of the defendant â?” that an offender has had a number of related offences on their previous record.
- DÓNAL NOLAN AND AISLING HUSSEY
