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GARDAÍ HAVE RELEASED drink driving statistics suggesting that 15,000 additional drink driving arrests have been carried out in the past 10 years compared to what was previously thought.
An Garda Síochána released the numbers, split by Garda division, to Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín following his submission of a parliamentary question (PQ) on the subject.
The released numbers suggest that 127,967 drink driving arrests were carried out across all Garda divisions around the country between 2007 and the first four months of 2018.
The data appears to contradict (and outnumber) that published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) by just under 15,000 instances (14,875).
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A query to the gardaí as to the reason for the discrepancy had not been fully answered at the time of publication.
A Garda spokesperson referred TheJournal.ie to the statistics published on the force’s own website. However these figures also fail to match either those provided to Tóibín or the CSO both.
Incomplete
In the case of 2016 the figures are incomplete, with no entries for November or December of that year.
The CSO has marked all of its crime statistics, which are delivered to the stats body via a data download from the gardaí’s own PULSE system, as being ‘under reservation’ (ie cannot be relied upon due to problems with ‘data quality’) as of March of this year, when it began to republish the statistics following a number of stoppages.
Those stoppages stemmed from the revelation in June of last year that 89 homicides over 14 years had not been counted in official figures due to a ‘process issue’. However, drink driving statistics were not previously understood to be affected by erroneous data.
Asked by TheJournal.ie what the difference might be between the CSO figures and what was released to Tóibín, a CSO spokesperson said that they ‘could not say’, and that the disparity ‘is a matter for the gardaí’.
Tóibín’s request was originally delivered to the Department of Justice in May of 2017, and requested that the figures to be released be split by age and gender of those arrested.
The final answer was delivered earlier in September, nearly 16 months after the initial request was lodged.
It did not detail the figures split by age and gender as, in the words of Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan in his reply, the data “is not readily available and… the collation of such data would require the expenditure of a disproportionate amount of Garda time”.
The age and gender of a person arrested is routinely input on PULSE by the officers concerned. Why it is not currently collated in statistical form by An Garda Síochána is unclear, though a CSO spokesperson confirmed that such data is something the body is hoping to incorporate into its future releases.
Age and gender
Without age and gender included, the data released by the gardaí should be routinely comparable with the data held by the CSO – however, this is not the case at present.
The next release of national crime data by the CSO, covering the second quarter of 2018, is expected to happen on Monday 1 October.
Drink driving will be made punishable by an automatic loss-of-licence once the current Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2018, approved by the Dáil earlier this summer and signed into law by the President on 23 July, is commenced by the Minister for Transport Shane Ross. Previously, and for the moment, those breath-tested and found to have between 0.5mg and 0.8mg blood alcohol concentration are punished with penalty points, as opposed to a disqualification.
The discrepancies seen in the released figures are split across the six Garda divisions (north, east, west, south, southeast, and Dublin) – with Dublin (3,589), the southeast (2,723), and the south (2,600) accounting for the majority of differences.
The worst year for discrepancies was 2010 with 2,287 additional arrests detailed in the Garda statistics compared to those of the CSO. An additional 1,530 and 1,033 arrests are detailed for 2017 and the first four months of 2018 respectively.
Previous investigations by TheJournal.ie into the issue of road traffic crime statistics revealed that people living close to Dublin are far more likely to have incurred penalty points compared to those living in rural areas, and that convictions for drink driving offences in Ireland have fallen to a massive extent over the past 10 years.
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Would love to see RTE explain the salary Ray D’Arcy receives based on them figures.
How does Newstalk Breakfast see a rise in listeners with that insufferable know it all Ciara Kelly.
@Laura Ni Hearga: The same way Pat Kenny’s show sees a rise. People hate listen so they can scream at the radio.
@Laura Ni Hearga: because she speaks her mind, comes without a preset agenda unlike one or 2 of her newstalk colleques (they are actually the ones showing a drop in listeners esp that leftie moncrief fella) and also the fixed narrative of rte radio 1 presenters some also on the way down.
@Laura Ni Hearga: yeah can’t stand her.
@ChadChaderson: stopped listening to morning Newstalk because of her would do your nut in
@M: Ciaras co-presenter is a “leftie”.
Thats why the numbers are up?
RTE just caters for wokesters, while they all support and applaud each other the rest of us switch off
You’d want to be barking mad to listen to it though…
2fm…a joke of a station. I’m not saying breakfast republic was everyone’s cup of tea but imagine having 180,000 listeners, cancelling the show, sacking Keith Walsh and replacing them with that muck.
@Brian Heffernan: 2FM should be sold off. It adds nothing to the FM band. RTE Gold would be better on FM instead of it. Not all parts of the country get Classic Hits so RTE Gold would fill a gap for those areas.
@Brian Heffernan: Well said Keith.
@Brian Heffernan: It’s bad because Dan Healey has lost the plot these day’s. What on earth is he thinking with these day’s? His Arse it must be… putting them 3 on the breakfast show especially that dreadful horror voice of Doireen! Christ she is bad!!!
@Ed: listen to Jennifer Zamparelli or allowing someone to get sick into your ears? Which would you prefer?
@Billy Davies: I’d rather choose none of them if that’s ok.
@Ed: Good point, Kind of a BBC Radio 2 which is the biggest station in the UK..
Delighted for Dermot and Dave. Really enjoy the vast majority of their stuff (except for Noni).
Lol at those PR comments – trebles all round – everyone’s doing brilliantly! The reality is there is very little choice on Irish FM radio – I wonder if they survey how many people are listening to online stations or 6music?!
How come Lyric doesn’t rate a mention?
@PJ Berry: Yes, I’ve listened to Lyric FM for a lot of my life. It has a smaller listenership according to the report.
Radio novvvvaaaaaaa. Except Dee Woods, she’s a tool
The quiz at four on ray d’arcys show every day is kinda boring and dragged out. He’s asking contestants what they’re having for the dinner just to kill a few extra minutes
@Sean O Cathasaigh:
That’s my favourite part
2FM breakfast show has to be the worst ever since radio started. They must have picked them three gob.. sh..it..s from the bottom of the toilet bowl. Jennifer Zapp is just as bad. Now Tracy is good at her job. God it would be great if Radio Nova from the 80s came back on air. They were propper DJs.
RTÉ have a radio station? Must look for it.
@Dave Barrett: you can’t see radio, it’s invisible
@Hugh Morris: Radio Station. Where they broadcast from. Not the frequency.
Even allowing for language difference, I’m surprised that Tús Áite at 1700 on RNaG isn’t on the list. Only from 3 to 5 news topics discussed daily in ‘standard’ Irish, at drive-time, calmly, without adverts, and without the need to reach hastily to turn off the bongo-bongo at 1800 that’s on RTE1. RNaG(+TG4) is possibly the only good reason to pay a TV licence.
@Fachtna Roe: Interesting. Good to see an unbiased comment on here for a change! But that’s enough about my comment…
@William Tallon: LOL, you’re a leg end
@Hugh Morris: The game’s afoot…
Newstalk Breakfast,The Pat Kenny Show a bit of Lunchtime Live, a bit of Moncrieff and a bit of Spin SW and that’s it for me. I find all the rest a tad silly! Nobody makes up for Gerry Ryan, Larry Gogan, Gay or Marian… “those days are gone…”
10 songs on repeat all day long
Government should make haste and prepare an urgent meeting regarding the implementation of a Radio tax to support RTE
What is bewildering for us non Irish is how boring rte is to us non Irish ears and then there’s rte, s total lack of any diversity.. All its presenters and output is all much cut from the same cloth.. Why eg are their no afro presenters.. Or any other ethnic or religion.
.
Irish radio listeners must have a high boredom threshold… Its seems to me that most people under seventy don’t watch or listen to rte. And then the tam ratings include those that are just switching channels.
Ie retention span!
Irish Radio, regardless of who owns it, is absolutely brutal. How many times a day do these stations think we need to hear Adele bemoaning some personal problems for starters. Classic hits my bean bag. Pretty much the same 30 or so songs recycled over and over. And that Dua Lipa rendition of Elton Johns songs is some of the laziest music I’ve ever heard. There’s no effort in it. Same tripe over and over and over across all the stations.
yes if you add up all the listeners to every single station the total figure exceeds the population by 4 or 5 times so yeah even if i channel hop i guess i am counted.
Lies lies more lies
Those who have ears to hear let them hear. We lend our ears to endless patter, but weather forecasts are important.
The Ray D’Arcy Affect
where I live i have very little choice, even hard to pick up rte since the they done away with dab radio. lucky I’m getting a Bluetooth radio from Santa.
The D’Arcy Affect
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