The High Court has ruled that a mandatory intoxicant testing checkpoint in Tallaght was validly authorised, answering a question referred by the District Court after Patrick White’s convictions on three road traffic charges.
Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan delivered the judgment on 19 December 2022 in a case stated. The District Court had asked whether a written authorisation was valid for the checkpoint where White was stopped, and, if not, whether his convictions were correct.
Garda David O’Donoghue stopped White while he was driving at Bóthar Katherine Tynan, Tallaght, at 1.40am on 13 October 2019. At the District Court trial, it was accepted that the Garda was conducting a mandatory intoxicant testing checkpoint and that a roadside breath sample gave a fail result. The prosecution produced a written authorisation signed by Inspector Denis Ellard, dated 13 October 2019.
White had faced complaints that he drove without insurance, drove without a licence, and had an alcohol concentration in his breath above the statutory limit stated in the summons. The District Court rejected a defence application to dismiss the charges on the basis that the authorisation was invalid. White did not give evidence and was convicted of all three charges on 22 July 2021. He then sought the District Court’s opinion on the legal questions.
The authorisation listed two checkpoints. The first was specified for 12 October 2019, before the date on which the document was signed; the second was the Tallaght checkpoint where White was stopped. The defence argued that the error made the document contradictory and invalid for both checkpoints. The prosecution submitted that the first checkpoint was irrelevant to White’s case and that the authorisation met the statutory requirements for the second.
Justice O’Regan found that the District Court had determined the Tallaght checkpoint was conducted under the written authorisation, and that the document was also produced in evidence. She concluded that the authorisation existed before White was stopped and, for the relevant checkpoint, specified the date, public place and permitted hours. White was stopped within those particulars.
The court answered “Yes” to the first question, finding the authorisation valid for that checkpoint. The second question, about the convictions, “does not arise”; the High Court did not separately decide it. The judge’s provisional view was that the prosecution should receive its costs, to be adjudicated if the parties could not agree. The parties were allowed 14 days to make written submissions on costs; absent submissions, the proposed order would be made.