Irish Examiner View: Flaws in the system of detecting drink-driving

Alcohol is involved in over one-third of Irish road deaths where toxicology results are available.

Bank holidays are now a traditional focus for road safety campaigns, which remain absolutely necessary.

Take the incident which claimed the life of Sheila Dunne in February 2023: A mother of two, she died when the vehicle she was travelling in crashed in Glanmire.

The driver, Jennifer Thomas, was later successfully prosecuted for dangerous driving, but she had claimed in the immediate aftermath of the crash that Ms Dunne had been driving the vehicle.

A representative of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has pointed out that such cases show the need for a change in how road crashes are handled. Sergeant Robbie Stone pointed out that while Ms Thomas was successfully prosecuted, “...it was necessary to prove that through a substantial investigation.

“She [Ms Thomas] claimed at the time that Sheila [Dunne] had been driving. There was no specimen taken at the roadside and there was no specimen taken in hospital subsequently. That made it so much harder to prove.”

Gardaí learned subsequently that Ms Thomas had had 12 alcoholic drinks. Had the incident occurred in Australia, for instance, attending medics would automatically have taken samples from everyone involved who came into their care.

The Irish system means a garda must direct a medical professional to take a blood sample within a three-hour timeframe, but this is an inherently flawed approach. Incidents in remote rural areas may involve long journeys for such medical professionals; in cities and towns the distances are shorter, but medical staffing commitments may militate against prompt responses.

Increasing that three-hour timeframe to five hours, as proposed by the AGSI, would be a step in the right direction. Alcohol is involved in over one-third of Irish road deaths where toxicology results are available, while Road Safety Authority data shows that 12% of drivers admit to drink-driving.

There have been progressive developments when it comes to road safety lately, such as Grace’s Law; named in memory of Grace Lynch, killed by a scrambler in January, this law bans scramblers from public places as of yesterday.

Addressing flaws in the way we deal with road traffic collisions would be another positive step.

Light rail

Indicative view of Luas Cork through Western Road. Photo: LuasCork.ie

The improvement and development of our transport infrastructure remains vital to national progress, and with the increase in fuel prices because of conflict in the Middle East, public transport initiatives have never been more necessary.

However, recent developments in Cork have raised serious questions about one such project, the light rail system proposed for the city.

Last year, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the National Transport Authority published the emerging preferred route for the planned system.

However, at least one section of that initial route is expected to be significantly different when the preferred route is published later this month: The new route would see the light rail line turning before Cork University Hospital and going through several housing estates.

This route would necessitate a high number of compulsory purchase orders, while the facilities of Bishopstown GAA Club and Highfield Rugby Club may also be affected.

While TII offered general observations about residents, businesses, and public representatives being able to make observations about the proposals, it was disappointing that the organisation did not respond to specific questions from this newspaper about these changes.

It is worth establishing why such changes to the original plan have been proposed, or the possibility that other parts of the original plan will also be changed. Such clarifications are as much part of TII’s brief as the work itself.

As local representatives have pointed out, it is unacceptable that people are learning in a piecemeal fashion about such drastic changes — “rumours through the grapevine” was the term used by one councillor, and he was not wrong. The time has long since passed when national organisations simply dictated to people what they could expect from wide-ranging infrastructural developments.

There has been some cynicism on Leeside about the prospect of this light rail system becoming operational at all, given the general vagueness about funding sources and delivery times. Developments such as this week’s revelations do nothing to allay that cynicism or to build confidence in the system being delivered.