Pensioner prefers road ban in drink drive case

A 76-year-old man who stopped off between Caherdaniel and Sneem on the Ring of Kerry for a few drinks with friends on his way home on a summer’s evening, has been banned from driving for two years, fined and will have to re-sit his test after being found driving with excess alcohol on a short drive to his home.

Frank Carroll, of Bunavalla, Cahersiveen, had no previous convictions and “he was not one of the major criminals of south Kerry” , Judge James O’Connor remarked at a sitting of Cahersiveen District Court yesterday, and offered to put a stay on the disqualification for some time.

However Mr Carroll’s solicitor, Jane Harrisson, said her client who would be 77 in August was simply too anxious about the whole thing; and the costs of his insurance had become too much and he would prefer to accept the disqualification beginning in July.