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

Stock image: Pexels

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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