Gardaí fail to serve 39% of summonses

A Garda whistle-blower has called for an independent inquiry into the non-serving of court summonses by gardaí after figures showed that almost 650,000 summonses were not served on alleged offenders over the past four years.

Figures supplied by the Courts Service show that 646,509 summonses were not served between 2009 and 2012.

It represents 39% of almost 1.7m summonses issued by the Courts Service over the period.