Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 September 2020
636. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Justice the number of prosecutions for the supply of a motorised vehicle to a person under 18 years of age from 2010 to 2019 and to date in 2020, in tabular form. [24775/20]
View answerThe Deputy will appreciate that road traffic legislation falls within the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Transport.
I am informed that under section 30 of the Road Traffic Act 2004, it is an offence to supply a mechanically propelled vehicle (a) to a person who is under the age of 16 years, or (b ) other than a mechanically propelled vehicle in respect of which a person who has attained the age of 16 years is entitled to hold a driving licence to drive, to a person who is under the age of 17 years. Section 30 (2) provides that a person found guilty of the above offence is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €3,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both. In this section “supply”, includes supply by way of sale, hire, loan, gift, or other means of making the vehicle available to a person.
As the Deputy is aware, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, the management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in exercising its functions. This includes the provision of information on the courts system.
However, in order to be of assistance, I have made appropriate enquiries and the Courts Service has advised that the following table contains the information sought by the Deputy:
Report on the numer of prosecutions for the supply of a motorised vehicle to a person under 18 years of age between the years 2010 – July 2020
|
-Year |
No. offences |
Orders |
|
Jan – Dec 2017 |
1 |
Struck Out |
|
Jan – Dec 2019 |
1 |
Withdrawn |
I am further advised by the Courts Service that they can only provide data where offence codes provided on the system were used by prosecutors. Prosecutors may have used uncoded free text offences and any such offences would not be included in the data provided above.
