A potential loophole identified by a legal challenge has seen hundreds of drink-driving cases adjourned, after a Romanian man was not given details of a breath test in Irish.
The challenge has been supported by a district court judge who has now referred it to the High Court.
Mihai Avandenei (28) was stopped in Dublin on April 21 of 2014 by Garda Francis McMahon, the Irish Independent reports. Gda. McMahon alleged that Mr Avadenei has been speeding, doing 80 km per hour in a 50 km per hour zone, and subsequently took him to store Street garda Station for a breathalyser test.
The test, carried out by anther garda, revealed that Mr Avandenei had 52 micgrogrammes of alcohol per 100ml of breath – with the legal limit 22.
Mr Avandenei subsequently signed the print-out from the intoxilyser - the breath testing device in the garda station. He was charged with drink driving and released on bail.
However, when Mr Avandenei appeared in the District Court in June of last year his solicitor, Michael Staines, argued that his client should have been given a read out of the test results in both Irish and English, and was otherwise not a duly completed statement within the meaning of the 2010 Road Traffic Act. The reading from the intoxilyser only comes in English.
District Court judge Conal Gibbons has agreed with Mr Staines’ argument but referred it to the High Court.
Evan O’Dwyer of O’Dwyer’s Solicitors in Mayo, spoke with Lunchtime today to discuss the case.
“You are entitled as a citizen of the country to have a law placed in front of you in the first language of the county, which is Irish, and our mother tongue, English,” he told Jonathan Healy.
Healy asked O’Dwyer if this was not a case of an incident where the spirit of the law was upheld?
“Solicitors in defence can sometimes be portrayed as bad guys because we find these problems,” O’Dwyer said.
“Look, given the nature of road traffic law, it affects every single person who gets behind the wheel ... because it affects everybody ... it’s always going to be under the maximum amount of scrutiny.
“This man ... faces a minimum two years off the road. A maximum period of up to four.
“We have to scrutinise all of these things to find what we can,” he added.
Listen to Evan O’Dwyer on Lunchtime
