Callely gets €150 fine for driving car without NCT disc

Former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator Ivor Callely was fined €150 yesterday at Dublin District Court for driving a car without an NCT disc.

Callely, who resigned from the Seanad after controversy surrounding his expenses, had received a summons for a road traffic offence of using a car without displaying a valid NCT disc, at Springdale Road, Raheny, Dublin, on July 7 last year. The 53-year-old, of St Lawrence’s Road, Clontarf, was not present for his hearing but was represented by a solicitor.

A guilty plea was entered and traffic Garda Dominic Noonan told Judge Bridget Reilly that when Callely was stopped he told him the car had passed the NCT. But Gda Noonan said it transpired it had not. The car was tested five days later and failed. Retested on July 14, it passed. Mr Callely had thought the car — his wife’s — was exempted from the NCT. However, it was clarified that the exemption in question only applied to motor tax.

Judge Reilly fined Callely €150, which she ordered must be paid within two months, otherwise he will face a 10-day sentence.

Mr Callely was elected to the Dáil for Dublin North Central in 1989 but lost his seat in 2007. He did not win election to the Seanad that year but was appointed as one of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s nominees.

However, he did not run for the Dáil or the Seanad in the 2010 elections.

Last year, the former minister of state had been fined €60 at Dublin District Court for holding a mobile phone while driving. That incident happened at Ballybough Road, in Dublin city centre, on Oct 11, 2010.