A total of 20 drink-driving prosecutions were dismissed at Drogheda District Court yesterday after Judge Flann Brennan ruled the State had caused a two-year delay in the cases being heard.
The prosecutions had been adjourned pending a ruling by the High Court on a point of law.
The State had asked that the High Court be consulted about an order that Judge Brennan had made in May 2004, in which he ruled that the State should allow an engineer, called on behalf of the defence, to observe the servicing of the intoxiliser breath-test machine.
The State argued that it could not compel the contractor to allow the inspection to be observed.
Judge Brennan also ordered that the State should facilitate an inspection of the machine and disclose certain documents in relation to its operation and maintenance.
Solicitor Paul Moore told the court that Mr Justice O'Neill had ruled on May 5th this year that Judge Brennan's order was correct.
He also said documents that should have been disclosed to the defence had not been provided.
Mr Moore applied to have the cases struck out on the grounds that the delays related to cases "going up and coming back" from the High Court and had not been the defendants' fault.
He added that it was over two months since Mr Justice O'Neill said Judge Brennan was right to make the order allowing the servicing of the machine to be observed.
Mr Moore had since been told that the annual servicing of the intoxiliser had taken place last month.
Insp Tom Fox said that each application for an adjournment had been consented to.
He explained that gardaí in Drogheda received no prior notification of when the intoxiliser machine was going to be serviced and that a representative of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety had said last week that it would do all it could to assist the court on receipt of the judgment.
Judge Brennan said he was satisfied the delay was so excessive as to be unjust and would be in breach of the right to a fair trial.
In dismissing the cases, he said "the major factor here is that two years were spent by the State challenging a decision of mine which the High Court found was correct and the defendants were certainly not to blame".
One of the 18 defendants involved in the ruling had three separate drink-driving prosecutions before the court.