LOWER LIMITS for drink-driving will come into force in September next year when up-to-date equipment becomes available, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has said.
The Minister was speaking last night after the Road Traffic Bill 2009 was passed by the Dáil late on Wednesday. The Bill reduces the current blood alcohol limit of 80mg to 50mg, and introduces a new level of 20mg for inexperienced motorists and professional drivers including taxi drivers and hauliers.
Mr Dempsey said the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, responsible for procuring and maintaining evidential breath-testing equipment, required approximately 12 months to secure 86 machines which can test at the new limits.
The Minister also said his preference had been for a six-month ban for drivers caught with blood alcohol between 50mg and 80mg, but that politically, this would have made the legislation impossible to pass. A group of more than 20 Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators opposed the Bill when it was first proposed last year, resulting in the penalties being reduced.
Under the Bill, first-time offenders caught with between 50mg and 80mg will receive three penalty points and a €200 fine if they do not challenge the penalties in court. This is the first time in Irish law that drink-driving has not attracted a driving ban.
“When I started drafting the legislation, I started with a six-month ban. Then we moved to six penalty points and we finished with three penalty points. I would prefer if it was a six-month ban, but I’ll settle for the lower limit as it brings us into line with Europe,” Mr Dempsey said last night.
He said if penalty points failed to provide a sufficient deterrent, the penalties would be increased.
In a late amendment to the Bill on Wednesday, Mr Dempsey agreed a further concession, put forward by Fine Gael’s Shane McEntee, to reduce from five to three years the amount of time penalty points for drink-driving remained on a licence.
“My own backbenchers and Fine Gael were saying penalty points for all other road traffic offences were for three years. That was the argument used and I accepted it.”
The legislation received all-party support, although some rural TDs criticised elements of the legislation because they favoured urban areas with good public transport.
Despite the concessions, the Bill has angered rural publicans, who campaigned strongly against it.
Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) chief executive Pádraig Cribben described it as a public relations exercise. “If we thought it would save a life we would support it, but both the Minister and the Road Safety Authority are on the record as saying speed is the biggest killer, yet they are doing nothing about this.”
Mr Cribben said the reasons why deaths on Irish roads fell to a record low last year was improvements in road quality and approximately 250,000 people leaving the workforce, and was not related to mandatory alcohol checkpoints.
“You don’t lose your licence if you are caught speeding twice or using a mobile twice,” Mr Cribben added, “but you will if you are caught over these limits a second time. It will further marginalise rural Ireland and it will criminalise people who don’t need to be criminalised.”
Under the Bill, drivers involved in a crash where someone is injured will face a mandatory breath test. The Minister said this was to avoid having gardaí called to attend minor collisions.
Ann Fogarty, a spokeswoman for Public Against Road Carnage, welcomed the Bill, but said limiting alcohol-testing only to drivers in crashes involving injuries was a weakness.
Noel Brett, chief executive of the Road Safety Authority, said the fact that the Bill passed through the Dáil with cross-party support and without a vote showed how attitudes to drink-driving had changed.
The Bill also provides for a drug impairment test, such as walking in a straight line. Those who fail will be required to give a blood sample. It also contains changes to the penalty-point regime, including a presumption that a fixed charge notice has been delivered. Currently, many drivers argue successfully that they never received this notice. The Bill is expected to be completed in the Seanad before the summer recess in early July.
