Seanad debates

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Sean BarrettSean Barrett (Independent)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 6, line 14, after "unauthorised" to insert "and reported to An Garda Síochána".

This amendment deals with the defence that a person's car was stolen at the time or taken without permission. I am trying to give protection to the Minister and society at large that if a person wanted to use that defence it would help if he or she informed the Garda rather than simply claiming that it must have been stolen at the time. I am trying to put an onus on the person who uses that defence to report it so that it is not an after-the-event excuse.

I realise there would be difficulties. A person could say he or she was watching television on the night in question and did not know. There must be a time limit issue. If the complaint is that a person's car was stolen and used by somebody to commit crimes, I am trying to make it incumbent on the person who seeks to use this defence to inform the Garda. That is the way it is phrased in the Bill and I am trying to include a protection for it. However, my senior counsel friend said this would be difficult to do. I think it is desirable, but I will leave it to the Minister and his advisers to decide whether it is a constraint we would wish to place on the use of the defence, "I was not driving the car at the time," to which we should be able to say, "You should have told us."

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