Drink driving test ruling reversed

A ruling that breathalyser test statements were not valid if printed in the English language only, which had held up 1,400 alleged drink driving prosecutions, has been overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The Director of Public Prosecutions had appealed a district court ruling which found that a failure to produce the other half of a statement showing breath-alcohol levels — in Irish — was not evidence at all.

Counsel for the DPP, Diarmaid McGuinness, had told the three-judge court the case had its roots in a road traffic prosecution of Mihai Avadenei, aged 29, with an address in Swords, Dublin.