EU laws to ensure cross-border traffic offenders are punished

Drivers who commit traffic offences - on either side of the Irish border - will be penalised once new EU laws come into force in Ireland next year.

The European Parliament this week approved a new law that will enable EU countries to exchange vehicle registration data to ensure traffic offenders are punished.

Sinn Féin MEP for the Midlands North West, Matt Carthy, welcomed the new laws.

"What it allows is a mechanism to ensure that if somebody breaks those laws which are put in place to save people's lives, essentially, ... those types of very sensible measures that have been put in place … that they can receive the same penalties as everyone else," he said.