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MORE THAN HALF a million people had penalty points on their driving licences this year.
Data released through a Freedom of Information request shows that a total of 510,269 people had points on their licences on 30 September 2020.
This represents a fall from last year, when a total of 516,390 people had points on their licences on 30 September 2019.
Similar to last year, the highest numbers were seen in some of the most highly populated areas of the country – Dublin (109,365 people) , followed by Cork (50,946) and Galway (27,597).
The counties with the lowest number of drivers with penalty points were ones that had some of the country’s lowest populations – Leitrim with 2,820 points, Longford with 4,885 and Sligo with 5,561.
51,458 of the people with penalty points placed on licences in the period covered were foreign licence holders.
Essentially, a penalty point is a formal reprimand by An Garda Síochána endorsed on a person’s driving licence to show that they are guilty of a specific driving offence. Such offences include speeding, breaking red lights, holding a mobile phone while driving and driving without insurance.
The information provided by the Road Safety Authority also gave a breakdown of the number of penalty points drivers had on their licenses.
(Click here for a larger version of this image)
Here’s a county-by-county breakdown:
Most drivers included in the list had three penalty points (359,593), while 35,576 people had two points and 52,226 had six points.
Overall, 16,409 drivers had seven or more penalty points. A total of 804 drivers across the country had 12 points.
Being issued with 12 penalty points results in disqualification for six months, while novice and learner permit drivers face disqualification if they receive seven points on their licence.
The figures give a snapshot of penalty points in Ireland, as they show the number of penalty points drivers in each county had on 30 September.
As penalty points stay on a driver’s licence for three years, these points could have been given at any stage over the past three years.
A full list of offences which can result in penalty points can be found here.
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The husband did his very best and ut must have been awful seeing his wife deteriorate but the hosputal unable to cope. Appalling.
Makes me mad that hospital excellence isn’t the prior government priority.
The only priority of this government is to try and fool us all in a couple of years and get back into power
The Government is destroying the public health care system or letting it self destruct. They want the health care for profit. The people should be under no illusion that this will mean even less care for more money. Look at what privation has done to the system in the Netherlands. …..it destroyed it, the country went from one of the most humane efficient systems to one where people are paying enormous sums to private companies for the least cover required by law.
“Dr Peter Boylan says it’s well recognised that Ireland has the lowest number of consultants per head of population in the OECD”. I’d hazard a guess earnings are at the very top levels of the OECD. Pay less, employ more?
Shock horror. Yup, top 2/3 well paid in the OECD even after recent cuts, and twice the pay of uk equivalents. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/irish-hospital-consultants-among-highest-paid-in-the-world-1.1850847
Hospitals are on five day week. Go in Friday wait till Monday for attention.
Consultant salaries have already been cut drastically. The result? There’s a mass shortage as consultants emigrate to North America and Australia for far better pay and conditions.
Not a very smart comment about reducing pay when they can’t recruit consultants (or registrars) to work in these jobs in the first place.
If we could only have centres of fully resourced barely adequate competence instead of centres of excellence that would be a good start. Clearly much more could have been done if the resources were there but we have other priorities in Ireland.
She died because she was in the wrong place from day one, a regional hospital without the expertise, in form of consultants, to recognise and treat her condition effectively before it became irreversible. Shocking.
No, it’s a consequence of hundreds of years of religious oppression and lack of a proper, full abortion legislation.
Daniel with a comment like that you must be trolling
This tragic case had nothing to do with abortion.
You knob.wrong case
Pro-choice think has reached a new high.
And around and around and around we go.! We know whats wrong but we do not know how to fix it. And women die and will continue to die,,,,,,
And men Mary, lack of resources etc is not gender specific.
Bad nursing and medical oversight has more to do with it. This new excuse, which may be valid, seems however to be designed to protect the staff on duty in the ward at the time of the lady’s fatal illness and excuse the HSE management.
That nurse tried her best to say patient needed icu but doctors dont care bout nurses opinions
Not to worry, thaw case will probably be used as an excuse to move maternity services out of Sligo hospital now to Galway or Derry or the moon.
Sad but true Carina.
I think using this case to make a point for more consultants is insensitive in the extreme. Our doctors are highly trained and should have been able to make the calls here. It shouldn’t have needed a consultant (who decided to go off to a clinic…).
A better call would be for the consultants to work in line with a 24x7x365 health service rather than suiting themselves to short days, long weekends and private appointments using public infrastructure. The outcome of those changes would not be ‘debatable’.
Lemon,
It’s strange that you think a consultant who is rostered to work in a clinic outside the hospital is in some way ‘suiting himself’
There aren’t enough consultants to staff a 24/7 roster.
There aren’t enough registrars, or SHOs, or interns either for that matter.
All doctors in ireland work far and away in excess of our contracted hours, in underresourced services stretched too thinly to provide the level of care we would like.
Nonsense about people suiting themselves (who exactly would have covered that clinic?) is unhelpful, and that antagonistic attitude is a big part of why the shortage of medical manpower exists.
Corrigan you dope!
have your say