The Minister for Justice has said that if a District Court Judge carries out his plan to jail convicted drink-drivers for a week pending sentence, he will be acting unlawfully, write Liam Horan and Mark Hennessy.
Judge John Neilan said yesterday that he felt he had to take this step because many drunk drivers seemed ready to to pay a fine or lose their licences, and the Garda's efforts to tackle the problem were not successful.
"How many people won't be alive to eat their Christmas dinners because of drunk drivers? How many more lives must be lost before we wake up to the carnage? I am approaching the end of my career now. I would not have liked to have left thinking I had done nothing," he told Edenderry District Court.
The Judge has invited interested parties to take a High Court challenge if they think he might not be entitled to adopt a policy of jailing drunk drivers for a week while he considers their sentence. He announced his intention to start implementing such a policy from December 1st when he was dealing with drink driving cases in Mullingar Court on Thursday.
In Dublin yesterday, Mr McDowell said a general policy to jail all drink-drivers pending sentence would "clearly be unlawful in my view and I believe that Judge Neilan, if he reflects on it, will come to the same view.
"The law does not permit that, the Constitution does not permit that. There is a constitutional entitlement to bail.
"The only circumstance in which somebody can be put in custody for a week is for good legal reason and a general policy as outlined by the judge is not a good legal reason," said the Minister.
"It is up to him to run his court in whatever way he wants. The judiciary are independent," Mr McDowell told journalists.
It is not known if Judge Neilan had heard the Minister's remarks before he spoke in court yesterday.
During yesterday's hearing, Judge Neilan warned another convicted drink-driver to "have his bags packed" when he returned to the court next month to hear his sentence.
Each court sitting brings a half-dozen drink-driving cases, he said, and he felt "like a machine churning out sentences" while people were dying. Many drivers seemed ready to lose their licence and pay the fine. "I am not prepared to slavishly follow that any more."