Tougher jail terms for drunk drivers

AMAN who was told by a judge that his 326 previous convictions must represent some kind of record yesterday received a four-month prison sentence and a 25-year driving ban after he was found intoxicated in a supermarket car park in west Dublin.

James Connors already is serving a prison sentence for burglary, and has 23 convictions for driving without insurance. He is an alcoholic, and while that might otherwise be taken as a mitigating factor in sentencing, it has no place here.

When challenged by gardaí who found him with an open bottle of beer in the car, and subsequently more than four times the legal limit, Connors drove off at speed and broke a red light before he was apprehended. Other road users were lucky. He easily could have killed someone that night, and it is a miracle he did not.

The 25-year driving ban is welcome, but the four months added to his jail tariff seem paltry. The road-death figures released this week show that fewer people died on our roads in 2017 than at any time in our history. There are many reasons for that, but among them is social opprobrium for drink driving, and proactive detection of drunkenness by gardaí.

The job of the police force, and of the judiciary, is to protect citizens from a wanton threat to their lives. Our acquiescence to tougher drink-drive laws demands an equivalent response, and in this case, we did not get it.

A clearer signal must be sent. If you drink and drive, much longer custodial sentences are warranted. The driving ban might be appropriate, but four months in detention is too generous to act as any sort of deterrent.