A significant amount of drivers who have been barred from driving are not submitting their driving licences with their assigned driver number. This creates challenges for both police and insurance firms in confirming if a prohibition is actionable, as stated by the community body, Parc. They have created a table recording the instances of disqualified drivers per county who have neglected to give their driver numbers to the court and return their licences to the Road Safety Authority (RSA).
In the period between 2022 and 2023, only six of the 232 banned drivers in Co Carlow handed over their licences after being barred by the courts. In 2022, four people surrendered their licences, dropping to two in 2023. This represents a clear acceptance rate of a mere 2.6 per cent over the span of two years.
The situation in Dublin city and county in the same 2022-2023 timeframe shows that out of the 4,708 notices of disqualification served, a mere 154 individuals or 3 per cent fulfilled their legal duty to return their licence to the RSA.
A disqualified driver would usually present their driver’s licence under typical scenarios, permitting the court to record the driver’s number. If no appeal is made or an appeal fails, the licence should then be returned to the RSA. The RSA, however, has mentioned to the Oireachtas Transport Committee that it would require personnel in every court handling driving offenses to enforce such a provision and prosecute banned drivers who refuse to return their licences.
Existing handheld Garda devices that can scan insurance disks and licences can determine if the driver is insured or licensed. Nonetheless, if the court hasn’t logged the driver’s number, no record would be available. As per the league table, only seven out of 230 banned drivers in Co Longford and six out of 90 in Leitrim handed over their driving licences during 2022-2023.
Ms Gray informed that their institution has been seeking data concerning drivers who haven’t returned their licences and faced prosecution since 2017 but to no avail. “They steadfastly refuse to share the required information even though failure to return licences is a punishable offence,” she declared.
Out of 303 offenders, merely seven submitted their licences in Co Monaghan, whilst in Co Laois, the number stood at 13. Meanwhile, in Kildare, only a meagre 42 drivers from a whopping 793 returned their revoked licences in the span of two years concluding in December 2023.
Catherine Murphy, the TD for North Kildare who set forth a Parliamentary Inquiry to obtain figures related to banned drivers who failed to surrender their licences, voiced out her concerns regarding these alarmingly high numbers. She voiced, “One would have assumed that the system could automatically confiscate their licence once a driver is disqualified.”