Four hauliers ordered to give up licences

FOUR HAULIERS with criminal convictions have been ordered to give up their heavy goods vehicle (HGV) licences and must do so within a week or face Garda action, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has told the Dáil.

He said the first statutory instrument or regulation he put in place “meant that anybody convicted over the last five years would have to give up their licence. Four people have been contacted in that regard. If they haven’t handed up their licence within another week or so, then the gardaí will be taking action against them.”

The new regulation was implemented in the wake of a report into the controversy about the granting of a HGV licence to what Labour transport spokesman Tommy Broughan described as a “notorious drug dealer”.

Speaking late last night during Dáil transport questions, Mr Dempsey pointed out that he had published on the department’s website the Farrelly report he commissioned into the controversy and its recommendations.

He told Mr Broughan that “all of the recommendations in the report are being acted on. Many of them are completed. But there will be one piece of legislation enacted from this report” that will be implemented next year.

The Labour TD said that “it’s a shocking report that the gardaí did not check for past convictions in relation to HGV licence and we awarded a licence to a notorious drug dealer – an appalling and disgraceful situation.”

He asked “does it mean that people with convictions for murder, manslaughter, drugtrafficking, sexual offences and so on will not be allowed to have a licence for this kind of vehicle?”

Mr Dempsey assured him that “all the matters that arose as a result of that particular case have been dealt with” and that gardaí would pursue the four individuals if they did not give up their licences.