10,000 drivers caught using mobiles in 2014

Nearly 10,000 drivers have been caught holding a mobile phone while at the wheel in the first three months of this year — compared to 28,000 drivers for all of 2013.

Garda bosses released the figures as they gear up for a national operation targeting mobile phone use tomorrow and Friday.

The Garda traffic chief, assistant commissioner John Twomey, said that a moment’s distraction from using a mobile phone could have a lifetime of consequences.