FURTHER DETAILS OF penalty points which were allegedly quashed by senior Gardaí were revealed yesterday.
At a meeting organised by the independent TDs Clare Daly, Joan Collins, Luke Flanagan and Mick Wallace, they said that nearly 1,000 notices for driving offences had been quashed by a single Garda Inspector over a four year period.
Calling for a public inquiry, they said that information released by a whistleblower had shown four cases where motorists who had penalty points cancelled were later involved in fatal road traffic accidents.
This included a hit and run incident, where the motorist had previously been caught travelling at 135km per hour in a 100km zone. This speeding offence had allegedly been terminated by a Garda Inspector.
Another motorist who was involved in a fatal road traffic accident had previously been caught traveling at 155km per hour in a 100km zone. This too had been removed.
According to the same source, thousands of tickets had been cancelled over the last four years for a range of motoring offences, including speeding, mobile phone use, failure to wear a seat belt, breaking a red light, having no tax and insurance, and for engaging in careless driving.
The TDs were disputing a previous assertion by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, where he said that only 197 allegations regarding the removal of penalty points were under investigation.
The images below show extracts from a dossier of evidence referring to tens of thousands of fixed penalty notices being cancelled, which the TDs revealed yesterday. (Images: Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
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