People ‘watching sports’ and using FaceTime while driving not breaking law, Policing Authority told

Gardaí are encountering more motorists watching video or live TV broadcasts on their phones or conducting FaceTime conversations while driving and cannot prosecute them because they are not in breach of any road traffic laws, a Policing Authority meeting has heard.

Assistant Commissioner Paula Hilman, who is in charge of road traffic policing, said An Garda Síochána had raised the issue at meetings with stakeholders, including the Department of Justice, because once a driver is not physically holding a phone they were not committing an offence under current laws.

Ms Hilman told the meeting, held in Drogheda, Co Louth, that gardaí enforcing road traffic legislation were increasingly meeting drivers watching footage or video calls on their phone screens.

“The offence is holding a mobile phone; what we’re seeing now is people watching, having FaceTime messages and calls, and people watching sport,” she said. “There’s no offence of distracted driving so that is something we’ve raised at our partnership meetings because the offence is holding the mobile phone.”

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She added so far this year gardaí had made 3,335 detections for intoxicated driving, which was marginally down on the 3,400 in the same period last year. The numbers detected drug diving was “nearly exactly the same”.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris was asked at the meeting about recent anonymous correspondence sent to the force and the Policing Authority alleging serious wrongdoing around roads policing.

While the content of that correspondence was not disclosed at the meeting, The Irish Times understands it relates to an allegation that Garda members were not carrying out the number of alcohol breath tests they were claiming. Instead, they were allegedly “blowing into the bag” and claiming these spent breath-testing kits had been used on motorists.

Mr Harris said the matter was being taken very seriously, adding that the Garda had upgraded the correspondence to a protected disclosure and was investigating accordingly. However, he said the person who made the allegations did so anonymously and had not stated the period or locations where it was alleged such abuses had occurred. As a result, it was very difficult to investigate and he urged any other Garda member with allegations to contact his office and set them out.

Mr Harris also told the meeting that the atmosphere around anti-immigration protests had, from a policing perspective, “certainly settled” down and was “a good deal more positive”.

His comments come just weeks after figures obtained by The Irish Times showed the number of anti-immigration protests held in Dublin, where the majority of such events take place, had halved in the three months to mid-May, from about nine per week at their peak earlier in the year.

Mr Harris said the further improving situation had been helped by the ability of the authorities to provide asylum seekers with accommodation, explaining that in the “great majority” of cases when foreign nationals were being moved into accommodation, that process had happened without incident.

[ Organised crime plays a role in anti-migrant activity, says Garda Commissioner ]

This meant there was no need for any “input” from the Garda, aside from a watching brief, including at more than 50 locations in Dublin where foreign nationals seeking protection or refuge had been housed.

Mr Harris added a new direction had been used to gardaí policing at protests, including groups of people seeking to block access to accommodation intended for foreign nationals. That new direction, setting out when gardaí should intervene and disperse or remove protesters, had been acted on at Ballybrit, Co Galway, and Santry, north Dublin, in recent months, he said.

Mr Harris said the localised gang feud in Drogheda, which was at its peak in 2018 and 2019 and had involved some murders, had been brought under control and the town had “moved on since then”. This was due to the work of the local community and the Garda. However, the remains of the gangs were still being policed and some of the investigations into the murders were still active.