Fewer than 5 per cent of people told to hand over their learner permit following a conviction for a road traffic offence complied with the law last year, according to official data.
In response to a parliamentary question from Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, the junior minister at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers said a total of 1,892 people driving on learner permits had been disqualified in 2023 but only 70 had surrendered their licences.
Some 571 drivers on learner permits with addresses in Dublin were disqualified, with just 23 surrendering their licences, while 111 drivers in Co Tipperary appeared before the courts and only three handed in their permits as required by law.
In his answer, Mr Chambers confirmed that a notification of disqualification issued by the Courts Service includes the requirement to surrender the driving licence or learner permit to the National Driver Licence Service (NDLS) within 14 days of commencement of disqualification.
A notification of disqualification on penalty points and a fixed penalty drink-driving disqualification is issued by the Department of Transport and also includes the requirement to surrender the driving licence or learner permit to the NDLS within the same time frame.
The Minister said the Garda has access to data on the National Vehicle Driver File (NVDF) and can detect and prosecute a driver who continues to drive while disqualified “whether or not a licence has been surrendered”.
However, Susan Gray of road safety group Parc warned that the message being sent to young and learner drivers was that “rules can be breached without fear of consequences as they are not being properly and comprehensively enforced. It would be terrible if that is the first message a young driver gets,” she said.
She highlighted it was an offence not to take a licence to court when appearing in connection with a road traffic offence but added that her organisation had “been highlighting problems of not surrendering licences for years” with little change evident.
She noted that in Tipperary, “a county that suffered the highest number of road deaths last year, only three out of 111 learners disqualified surrendered their permit following court disqualification”.
The Road Safety Authority has routinely said that just because motorists do not surrender their licence does not mean they are driving illegally, she said. “But it is common sense if I don’t surrender my licence it’s because I want to hold on to it for a reason.”
She stressed that in the absence of a driver’s permit and unique driver number it can be hard to police road safety.
Ms Gray added that Mr Chambers is introducing more laws in the 2024 Road Traffic Bill “including a provision to increase the number of penalty points for drivers detected committing more than one driving offence on the same occasion”, but asked whether he should be “concentrating on ensuring the current laws are working and enforceable first. He’s adding yet another layer to an already broken system. Fix the problems we have.”
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