Banned drivers are giving up their licences, insists Cullen

Drivers who have been put off the road for penalty points offences are handing in their driving licences, it was claimed today.

There was controversy in the Dáil when it emerged that gardaí on the beat would not be able to check on their handheld systems if a driver had reached the maximum limit of 12 penalty points.

But Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said people were not abusing the system as had been claimed.

“There’s no evidence at all to say that people are not giving up their licences when they get the 12 penalty points. Nobody that has been notified has failed to turn in their license,” he said.

The Dáil heard that since the introduction of the penalty points system in 2002, 34 drivers had been disqualified from driving for six months and had complied with the requirement to hand in their licences.

Mr Cullen said disqualification notices had been sent out to another 13 people, requiring them to hand in their licences within 28 days, and said that eight had already done so.

He said a further seven drivers were in the process of being disqualified.

Fine Gael Transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell TD said the responsibility for driver licensing should rest with one body rather than being shared between the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment.

“We’ve had the fiasco of the failure to disqualify drivers with 12 penalty points. I do think that vesting it in one body is the way to go,” she said.

Although it is an offence under the Road Traffic Act for banned drivers not to hand in their licence, gardaí currently have to ring their station to request a check of the PULSE system to discover if a driver had been banned.

Ms Mitchell called on Mr Cullen to introduce a computerised driving licence so that gardaí would be able to check a motorist’s penalty points record instantly.

Mr Cullen said the Government was waiting for European standards on a ’smart card’ driving licence to be agreed.

“As soon as they’re produced, Ireland will go to a smart card system,” he said.

Sinn Féin TD Sean Crowe said it was currently too easy for people to give false identities when they were stopped by the Gardaí.

He said he was aware of a woman in his Dublin constituency who had been repeatedly called to court over a two year period for driving offences she had not committed because offenders were wrongly giving her name to the Gardai.

“For this woman, it was having a huge impact on her life because she was having to take time off from work,” he said.