Tax out for 40 months

A 50-year-old woman was before Sligo District Court charged with not having insurance, tax or certificate of road worthiness when stopped by gardaí at Fish Quay, Sligo on April 2nd 2018.

Nicola Durkin, Glebe House, Collooney was represented by Mr Pat O’Sullivan BL instructed by Mr Hugh Sheridan, solicitor. Mr O’Sullivan said that his client couldn’t deny the offences but that he would be making submissions in relation to the case.

Garda Joe Evans told the court he was on patrol on April 2nd 2018 when he observed a jeep on O’Connell St with all of the discs out of date.

He asked the driver to pull in at Fish Quay. It was a commercial vehicle and the tax was out for 40 months with a total loss of revenue of €1,320. He said it transpired the woman was not insured to drive the vehicle. He said the jeep had a lot of algae on it and it appeared to be very rarely used.

Mr O’Sullivan told the court Durkin’s husband is a pharmacist who runs a number of pharmacies. The jeep in question he was holding onto for a friend of his who was out of the country. He said Mr Durkin wasn’t driving it often but did very occasionally to keep the engine ticking over.

On the morning in question he drove it to the pharmacy and he asked his wife, who helps out in the pharmacy, to drive it to the nearby Glasshouse hotel car park.

She proceeded to do this and was fully convinced she was insured as they have two policies of insurance. However it transpired that the policy didn’t cover her to drive the jeep as she was a named driver on the two policies.

He said it was a very honest mistake and that Durkin was an individual who had an unblemished record and both her and her husband were both highly respected in the community. He said that it never crossed her mind that she was not insured as she had no intention to drive without insurance.

Judge Kilrane said it was a situation where the jeep was being driven without tax or a certificate of road worthiness which was known to Mr Durkin.

The judge said that he heard what the counsel said but that he couldn’t treat the defendant any differently to any other person. He said the extension that allows an insured person to drive another vehicle does not extend to a named driver and said he was surprised the parties did not know that. He said he has to treat everyone the same. He said the old vehicle was hanging around the house and appeared as though it was pulled out of a hedge.

The judge struck out the no tax and no certificate of road worthiness charges and fined Durkin €300 for not having insurance. Mr O’Sullivan asked if he could leave her without a ban as she is a classical violinist and needs to travel all over the country and abroad for her work and the judge agreed.