A Co Monaghan woman has been convicted in a jury trial of dangerous driving causing the deaths of two of her friends in a car crash in September 2004. Frances Flanagan, Lurganmore, Castleblayney, was also convicted of drunk-driving.
The two-day trial presided over by Judge John O'Hagan heard Ms Flanagan had been drinking in Castleblayney with Teresa Murray (49) Carrickmacross and Séamus Walsh (38) Broomfield, before going for a drive in her new car, a 1994 registered Volkswagen Golf.
However, the car left the road at Corledargan on the N2 about three miles from Castleblayney in the direction of Monaghan town. It travelled across the right-hand side of the road, hit the parapet of a bridge and landed in a field about 10 feet below the road.
Witnesses told the court Ms Flanagan had admitted to bending down to change a music tape in the moments before the car crash.
Ms Flanagan in a statement to gardaí had denied bending down to change the tape.
She said she was "dumbfounded" at the blood alcohol analysis that found she was almost three times over the legal limit. She said some alcohol may have remained in her system from the previous day.
Defence counsel Anthony Sammon, with Monica Lawlor, noted that the point where the car had left the road was dangerous. Responding to questions from Ms Lawlor, a consultant engineer, Joe Osborne, said he believed the road should be a designated a black spot.
He said the accident location was immediately after a sharp bend and a dip in the road before the bridge. There were, he said, no official road warnings on the road at the time of the accident.
Mr Osborne also noted that there had been at least three fatalities at the site in the years prior to Ms Flanagan's crash. These had occurred in two crashes in 1996 and 2003 and are commemorated in monuments at the roadside.
Mr Sammon said it was clear that the stretch of the N2 was "a killer road". The driver was reacting to an emergency situation and a conviction for dangerous driving causing death should not follow, he said.
However, Frank Martin, BL, for the Director of Public Prosecutions said the car had travelled to the right-hand side of the road, struck the parapet, crashed through a hedge and two people had died.
There was, he argued, a large volume of traffic which used the road daily without such disastrous results. Drivers should adjust and take account of road conditions. Failure to do so would clearly have catastrophic results and "the State says that is dangerous driving".
Judge O'Hagan remanded Ms Flanagan on continuing bail until January for sentencing.