Loophole lets drivers dodge disqualification as blame game erupts

Ottoline Spearman

A loophole may have allowed drivers to escape disqualification, as a blame game is emerging between the Courts Service and the Government.

Research by Ralph Riegel of the Irish Independent has found that drivers' penalty points can go unrecorded if a license is not surrendered after an offence.

Despite the law requiring the surrender of a license within 14 days of a speeding offence or a road traffic offence, in practice, the statutory power is often not used.

The Government says the courts are responsible, but the Courts Service says it has been raising the issue for 15 years and lacks the powers to act.

Those who fail to bring their licence to court and provide a driver number after an offence may therefore avoid having penalty points recorded.

Tony Johnstone from the Irish Road Victims Association has said that the system may need stronger sanctions to hold offenders to account.

Speaking on Newstalk, he said: "maybe when somebody gets their court appearance, there should be a notice on there somewhere along the lines of failure to arrive in court with your license will [result in] an additional fine..

"And then maybe that court should be adjourned for them to arrive again with their license."

This comes as the Department of Transport is paying a third-party provider to help with capturing and allocating driver numbers.

A recent survey by Parc road safety group looked at penalty points allocated by the Courts Service that were not attached to specific drivers - which can happen as the unique driver number is different to the driving license number.

The survey taken over a one-month period shows that nearly 20 per cent of penalty points that were lacking driver allocation could have been imposed on an offending motorist, which equates to 1,500 penalty point offices.

Failure to capture a unique driver number can happen in a number of scenarios, including if a driver doesn't bring their licence to court, or if there are foreign or missing driving licenses.

Speaking on Newstalk, Riegel said that "if you stretch this back over a decade, possibly thousands of motorists who potentially could have been disqualified, were not disqualified".

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