Save your breath... court throws out bilingual breath test appeal

THE Garda Traffic Corps heaved a sigh of relief yesterday after the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge by a Romanian national that breathalyser results should be in both English and Irish.

Following the ruling, it’s believed more than 1,000 drink-driving prosecutions can now go ahead.

Mihai Avadenei, 30, with an address in Lios Cian, Swords, Co. Dublin, originally applied to have his case for drink driving struck out on the basis of a legal loophole in 2014. He claimed he had not been presented with his breath test results in Irish, as well as English.

But after a long journey through the courts, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley of the Supreme Court yesterday said Mr Avadenei had not had any rights violated by the use of the form as evidence in his drink-driving case. She said: ‘In the circumstances, I would dismiss the appeal.’ Emergency legislation was rushed in by the Dáil in September 2015, after Mr Avadenei won his case at High Court level. But that legislation was not retrospective, and all cases before that date were still open to challenge.

It has been reported that around 1,400 prosecutions were on hold pending yesterday’s decision, although an unknown number had been struck out at District Court level. The DPP opposed Mr Avadenei’s claim right up to Supreme Court level, and had also been successful at the Court of Appeal.

Mr Avadenei was stopped by Garda Francis McMahon at 12.50am on April 21, 2014, at Wolf Tone Quay in Dublin, after allegedly driving at 80kph in a 50kph zone. In Store Street Garda Station, Garda Colm McCluskey and Mr Avadenei both signed the computer print-out following a breath test. Mr Avadenei was charged with drink-driving and released on bail. He appeared before the Dublin District Court in July 2014, where his solicitor Michael Staines argued his client should have been given a read-out of his breath test in both Irish and English under the 2010 Road Traffic Act.

In the High Court, Judge Conal Gibbons said he sided with Mr Avadenei, but asked for a ruling from the higher court. High Court judge Mr Justice Seamus Noonan supported this position only to have the Court of Appeal overturn that finding. Challenged once more by Mr Avadenei, the case went to the Supreme Court. The issue of costs in the appeal will be decided at a later date.