Call for 'foreign' loophole to close

The AA has called on the Government to introduce a new "non-national driver file" to maintain a record of penalty points for those producing foreign licences following motoring offences here.

The move follows clarification by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) that mutual recognition of penalty points between the Republic and Northern Ireland - as well as the wider EU community - is still some years away.

The new record of driver offences would be operated in a similar fashion to the National Driver File which records penalty points against holders of driving licences issued in the Republic. In this way the State would be able to issue penalty points to holders of foreign driving licences, ultimately banning them from driving within the Republic.

Under an agreement reached earlier this year, governments in the Republic, Northern Ireland and the UK would recognise full motoring bans issued in either jurisdiction, by next April. But the chief executive of the RSA Noel Brett confirmed yesterday that mutual recognition of penalty points for anything less than a ban, was still some years away.

According to the AA there is statistical evidence that the use of foreign licences is a considerable loophole in the penalty points system. Currently foreign nationals account for about one in 10 of the population, but foreign licences are produced in about one in four of the number of breaches of Rules of the Road.

Data released last week shows that almost 440,000 drivers have received points since their introduction in 2002, but 108,000 of these drivers do not hold an Irish driving licence and so the points cannot be applied. The foreign licences include those from Northern Ireland, the UK, eastern Europe and further afield.

However, both the RSA and the AA said yesterday that they did not believe the implication from the statistics that foreign drivers were significantly worse than national drivers.

The AA's Conor Faughnan maintained that "either foreign drivers were many times worse than Irish drivers", or that "Irish drivers with access to licences issued out of State are using these in response to speeding tickets". Such a move would mean that an Irish national could submit to a speeding fine, but would avoid penalty points.

Mr Faughnan said the issue was a loophole on which the AA had already briefed the Department of Transport, and he said it represented "a major gap in Irish law at the moment". He added he believed the situation is worsening.

Mr Brett said that mutual recognition of penalty points among member states of the EU would not happen this year or next. Such a move, he said, would require primary legislation in each EU country. In addition it would require penalty points systems across the EU to be brought into line.

For example, he said that in Ireland two penalty points can apply for speeding, but in the UK it was three. In addition, an automatic ban comes into force in the UK on reaching 10 penalty points, but in the Republic the level was 12 points.

In relation to the numbers of foreign nationals involved in collisions here he said a proper statistical evaluation would indicate they were no worse than Irish drivers. He said Garda figures for crashes involving left-hand drive vehicles were very low. In addition, a high proportion of foreign nationals involved in collissions were young people, and a high proportion male. When the collision rates for this segment were compared to the collision rates for the corresponding segment of Irish drivers the results showed drivers were about the same, he said.