The chances of being convicted for a drink-driving offence are substantially lower in some District Courts than in others, according to an RTÉ investigation. Overall, 48 per cent of drink-driving cases that came before a District Court resulted in a conviction. In Louth, 37 per cent of court orders in theft cases were to jail the offender. The research also found 843 penalty points cases were dealt with by the poor box in 2015, despite the law providing no discretion to judges to apply the poor box in cases where driver penalty points automatically apply. In 2016, the court poor box in Mayo paid out €9,930 to charities while Kerry’s poor box paid out €394,000, more than a quarter of the national poor box total.

Source: The Irish Times December 11, 2017 22:30 UTC