Almost 25,000 Fines Issued For Holding A Mobile Phone While Driving.

Friday, 28 May 2021 09:23

1,600 of those were issued in Kildare.

Nearly 25,000 fines were sent to people last year for holding a mobile phone while driving.

Over 5,000 were in Dublin, and 1,600 in Kildare.

Eoghan Murphy reports:

"If you're caught driving with a phone in your hand, or cradled in the crook of your neck, you face a fixed charge notice of 60 euro and three penalty points on your licence.

The Justice Minister says the gardai issued 24,475 fines for the offence last year.

5,047 were in Dublin, with over 2,700 in Cork.

Just over 1,600 were in Kildare, with over 1,500 in Galway.

The Garda division with the least was Sligo-Leitrim, with 237, with 355 in Westmeath.

Last year's total was down over 4,600 on 2019, but there were strict movement restrictions in place last year due to the pandemic. "

While 260 summons were issued in Kildare last year, arising from cases where drivers were detected using mobile phones.

In all, 1,601 fixed charge notices, including penalty points, were issued by Gardai to drivers in the county for the office in 2020.

16% of those cases resulted in summons, or the proceeding of the case to court.

Breakdown by division of the number of instances in which a party was issued with a Fixed Charge Notice for the offence of driving while holding a mobile phone.

Division	2018	2019	2020
Cavan/Monaghan	1136	992	642
Clare	910	584	662
Cork City	1625	1333	1258
Cork North	1142	1170	928
Cork West	696	621	529
D.M.R. Eastern	1078	980	682
D.M.R. North Central	684	584	570
D.M.R. Northern	932	1235	962
D.M.R. South Central	973	1083	593
D.M.R. Southern	1113	1029	669
D.M.R. Western	1678	1599	1571
Donegal	460	613	578
Galway	2732	2253	1534
Kerry	1078	1119	806
Kildare	1591	1244	1601
Kilkenny/Carlow	1429	1122	1338
Laois/Offaly	1344	1041	814
Limerick	2524	2264	942
Louth	630	439	846
Mayo	717	1320	907
Meath	641	698	1250
Roscommon/Longford	714	614	421
Sligo/Leitrim	682	745	237
Tipperary	716	745	796
Waterford	1024	805	1090
Westmeath	443	351	355
Wexford	1620	1584	1237
Wicklow	862	939	657
Grand Total	31174	29106	24475

Breakdown by division of the number of instances in which a party was issued with a Fixed Charge Notice for the offence of driving while holding a mobile phone and, in addition, a summons was issued and/or the case was sent to court.

Division	2018	2019	2020
Cavan/Monaghan	138	132	106
Clare	116	69	110
Cork City	225	173	196
Cork North	124	147	146
Cork West	64	61	37
D.M.R. Eastern	129	121	95
D.M.R. North Central	127	112	120
D.M.R. Northern	163	221	196
D.M.R. South Central	139	197	104
D.M.R. Southern	193	167	168
D.M.R. Western	307	326	353
Donegal	55	60	90
Galway	277	271	203
Kerry	137	134	131
Kildare	197	157	260
Kilkenny/Carlow	135	143	188
Laois/Offaly	145	130	120
Limerick	363	294	188
Louth	73	73	159
Mayo	56	128	126
Meath	85	92	186
Roscommon/Longford	71	63	62
Sligo/Leitrim	64	63	28
Tipperary	90	94	136
Waterford	103	104	161
Westmeath	43	34	55
Wexford	198	166	151
Wicklow	106	109	117
Grand Total	3923	3841	3992

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