Why Drink Driving Cases Really Get Dismissed, And Why It’s About Fairness, Not Loopholes

Why Drink Driving Cases Are Dismissed in Ireland | Fairness, Not Loopholes

The Great Escape?

People often think that when a drink driving case is thrown out, it’s because a clever lawyer found a tiny legal trick.

"If you actually listen to what judges say in court

around the country, you’ll often hear some variation

of the same phrase:

“My lists are very long enough as it is.

I’m trying to clear my lists, not add to them”.

So, they need good reasons to keep adjourning cases.

Because without good reason they won’t"

The truth is very different.

This is not an article about "how to get out of drink driving charges".

That is crass and tacky.

It's an article showing how the system really works, right around the country, from the inside.

And it's different to what you'd imagine.

These cases collapse for one reason above all: our justice system has built-in safeguards to protect fairness.

Fairness is hard to define, it can look different in every case, but without it, the whole idea of justice falls apart.

When a case is set for trial, the State has to prove it in full.

Not “nearly” prove it. Not “mostly” prove it.

Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, with every essential piece of evidence, every required witness, and every procedural safeguard met.

And here's something that people often forget: real life sometimes gets in the way.

Over the years, I’ve seen drink driving prosecutions collapse for reasons like:

• The arresting Garda was on long-term sick leave, with no date for return.

• The Garda was on maternity leave.

• A key State witness was absent and the court was given no timeline for when they’d be available.

• The wrong charge was on the summons, or it described an offence that doesn’t even exist in law.

• Disclosure, despite being ordered by the court, wasn’t served on the defence.

• A vital document was missing, or was used incorrectly.

• Breathalyser guidelines weren’t followed at the roadside or in the station.

• An arrest happened on private property without evidence of the legal authority to do so.

• The Garda notebook was lost — and with it, the memory of crucial details needed to make a statement.

• The case took 3-4 years, to get to trial and there was no adequate explanation for this.

In each of these situations, the prosecution was dismissed.

Not because of a “loophole.”

But because without these safeguards, the system bends away from fairness.

The Role of ‘Fairness’ in Court

Fairness isn’t a fixed checklist. It’s an idea judges apply differently in every case.

Take the example of a sick witness.

If a Garda is ill on the first trial date, the case will almost certainly be adjourned, and rightly so. People get sick through no fault of their own.

After all, if your trial was taking place tomorrow and you became violently ill tonight, would it be fair that the trial went on without you?

Of course not. But what if the illness is long-term and there’s no sign of recovery?

That’s where another legal safeguard comes in: the right to an expeditious trial.

Courts are already under pressure with heavy lists across the country.

If you actually listen to what judges say in court around the country, you’ll often hear some variation of the same phrase:

“My lists are very long enough as it is. I’m trying to clear my lists, not add to them”.

So, they need good reasons to keep adjourning cases.

Because without good reason they won’t.

Judges will not adjourn a case indefinitely, because to do so would leave a defendant in legal limbo, possibly for many more months or years.

That’s not justice.

Why Safeguards Matter

It’s tempting to dismiss these scenarios as “technicalities.”

Technicalities do not exist.

That's a phrase the media made up years ago, and like an awful lot of what the media print, you should treat it with caution.

These are rules and every one of these rules was created for a reason: to protect against wrongful conviction, and to ensure trials are fair for everyone, not just the State.

If the State can’t prove its case within those rules, the law says it must fail.

That’s not a flaw in the system.

That is the system.

"It’s tempting to dismiss these scenarios as “technicalities.”

Technicalities do not exist.

That's a phrase the media made up years ago,

and like an awful lot of what the media print,

you should treat it with caution"

The Bigger Truth

In court, unusual outcomes are not rare.

They are part of the living, human process of justice.

Witnesses go on leave.

Paperwork gets lost.

People make mistakes.

And when those things happen, the safeguard isn’t just for the person in the dock, it’s for all of us.

Because the day we stop protecting fairness is the day we stop protecting justice itself.