The High Court ruled that a written Garda authorisation could cover alcohol checkpoints at multiple locations over a seven-day period, provided it specified the dates, places and operating hours. It also said whether a named road is sufficiently specific as a checkpoint location is for the District Judge to assess in the circumstances.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered the judgment on 13 November 2015 in a case stated by Judge David Kennedy of the District Court at Bray. The procedure asked the High Court to answer legal questions arising from the prosecution of James Gregory; it was not an appeal deciding his guilt or innocence.
The charge alleged that Gregory drove on Putland Road, Bray, on 27 March 2014 with alcohol in his body above the statutory breath limit. The District Court’s agreed facts included that Garda Teresa Hegarty stopped him at an authorised mandatory alcohol checkpoint. A roadside breath test registered “fail”; after his arrest, a station test recorded 52 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. These were facts stated in the case, not findings made by the High Court on the charge.
Gregory’s solicitor sought dismissal, arguing that the authorisation improperly covered multiple locations and times over seven days and did not identify a sufficiently specific public place. The authorisation at issue listed 14 locations and specified 45-minute intervals. For Putland Road, it named 27 March 2014, between 10.45pm and 11.30pm.
The High Court answered “yes” to the first question: that date-limited, time-constrained authorisation was valid under section 10 of the Road Traffic Act 2010, as amended. The judge reasoned that the legislation allowed plural checkpoints and locations, and found no delegation of authority in the authorisation described in the case.
The court did not give a yes-or-no answer to whether Putland Road needed to be identified more precisely. It said a road may be so extensive that it cannot sensibly be treated as a “place”, but that the District Judge must decide this case by case, with local knowledge. The fact that a road exceeds one kilometre does not, by itself, mean it cannot qualify as a place. The judgment answered the legal questions referred; it does not state the District Court’s subsequent decision on the charge.