Gardai defend conviction rate

Gardaí expect a significant increase in drink-driving convictions in 2005 as the backlog of cases delayed by challenges to the Garda Intoxilyzer are processed.

Chief Insp John Farrelly, head of the new Garda Traffic Corps, told Motors that, because drink-driving prosecutions "were strongly fought and the number of challenges astronomical", delays in processing these cases are huge.

He was speaking after the head of the state agency responsible for testing blood and urine samples from suspected drink drivers said "weak enforcement of existing road traffic legislation" was failing to save lives.

Writing in the Medico-Legal Journal of Ireland, Professor Denis Cusack and Dr Cliona McGovern said that national "conviction rates of just over half of all 'over the limit' results there is no real incentive for people to modify their behaviour."

In his research Dr Cusack found that, of 44,260 charged for being over the limit between 1999 and 2003, only 51 per cent got a conviction. His research also highlighted a collapse last year in the conviction rate for blood and urine samples to just 34 per cent, down from an average 63 per cent for the previous five years.

While he recognised a drop in the conviction rate last year for breath samples was understandable due to High Court challenges to the Intoxilyzer, he said neither adjournments nor the number of cases pending explain "the dramatic fall to 34 per cent in blood and urine cases raises serious questions about the effectiveness of road traffic legislation over the continuum of enforcement, forensic analysis, prosecution and conviction and have not been satisfactorily explained."

His research showed that, except for 2003, the conviction rate for prosecutions based on blood or urine samples was 63 per cent on average for the five years to 2003. However, the prosecution rate for breath samples also found to be over the limit was far lower, at just 36 per cent on average.

Defending the Garda role in bringing drink-driving prosecutions, Chief Insp Farrelly said that once a case reached the courts it was largely out of Garda hands.

While challenges to the Intoxilyzer were pending, he said, "judges won't hear other drink driving cases so they are put on hold. Then you have a massive backlog because a huge proportion were adjourned."

Suggestions that only half of those charged with drink driving would escape prosecution sounded "well wide of the mark", he said. He noted that every Garda Annual Report - from which the researchers drew part of their data - gives three main categories for drink driving offences; the number of people prosecuted, convicted and also cases pending.

Last year 10,358 were prosecuted for drink driving and 3,060 were convicted.

However, assuming only 3,060 were convicted "was very simplistic," because a further 2,356 cases were listed as pending, while many more had not been considered by the courts at the time the figures were compiled - due in part to delays arising from the Intoxilyzer challenges. "This doesn't mean these cases resulted in acquittals," said Chief Insp Farrelly.

However, he is unable to say what the most accurate conviction rate is - no State agency tracks all drink-driving cases from prosecution to conviction because of a lack of national data for district court cases.

Chief Insp Farrelly says one indication of the conviction rate in cases which were completed with "pending cases" removed can be obtained from a pilot scheme analysing conviction rates in Dublin and Limerick District courts.

Although limited, these examples suggest a conviction in roughly two out of every three cases - which Chief Insp Farrelly says sounded "a lot closer to the mark".

The social effects of drink driving can be seen in another aspect of Dr Cusack's research. This found that more than half the drivers killed in single-vehicle fatal crashes in Co Kildare where they were the only occupant of the car were over the legal alcohol limit.

Of the 32 drivers killed in Co Kildare in the 10 years since 1994, Dr Cusack said 20 had a positive blood alcohol sample and 16 had a blood alcohol concentration of 169mg/100ml or greater.

And it now appears that, while the State was fighting one set of challenges against drink-driving laws, it may have inadvertently opened a new avenue of possible challenge.

While the challenges to the Intoxilyzer were dismissed in September and even though cases pending are not statute-barred, a Dublin man has launched a court challenge against a drink driving prosecution on the grounds that his right to a swift trial had been violated.