Disqualified drivers to be ‘named and shamed’ in public

Transport Minister Shane Ross has announced plans to “name and shame” disqualified drivers via a public database, The Irish Times reports.

However, industry insiders have questioned whether the proposals are compatible with Irish data protection laws.

Mr Ross told The Irish Times: “It’s not just a token measure. A lot of people disqualified are in employment, some of them are professional drivers, their employers don’t know, their spouses don’t know, their neighbours don’t know.”

He said the public database, which would include the length of a driver’s disqualification, would mean drivers would find it more difficult to ignore their sentence and carry on driving.

According to the Road Safety Authority, almost 8,000 drivers banned for drink driving or causing death have carried on driving.

Between 97-98 per cent of disqualified drivers asked to return their licenses ignore the letter.

Mr Ross said: “What we see here is a lawlessness which a lot of people were not aware of – that those who are disqualified are simply flouting the law, going out and driving willy-nilly, whether they have a licence or not. We are going to have to do something about that.”

However, a senior figure in a major Irish insurance company told The Irish Times: “One of the challenges we face is there are strict data-protection laws in Ireland. They are much stricter than in the UK and it prevents us, as an industry, storing information as in the UK.”