A garda driver has been suspended and taken into custody for crashing a State car. The driver is taken into custody suspecting that he was drunk during the time of incident.
The collision took place yesterday morning on the M3 in county Meath. The suspect is a part of the group of garda drivers. Reports says that no one was injured from the collision.
The Garda Commissioner last night granted permission to suspend him from duty. An internal disciplinary inquiry is also underway.
The duties of the Garda drivers are to drive senior members of the judiciary, including judges of the Special Criminal Court, the Director of Public Prosecutions and also senior Government officials such as the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice.
Garda drivers have the provisions and license to carry firearms and they have the duty of protecting the people they are driving.
During the collision the man was driving a State car. Gardaí from Navan inspected the scene and the driver was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving and was taken to Navan Garda Station.
50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood is the drink driving limit, but for ‘certain drivers’, a lower limit of 20mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood applies. This ‘certain drivers’ include learners, novice drivers, professional and commercial drivers.
There are confusions regarding the consideration of the garda driver’s position, because while taxi and lorry drivers are mentioned in the legislation, gardaí are not.
He is the ninth garda to be suspended from duty in the last three days.
The Garda Headquarters has released a statement saying that gardaí in Navan attended the scene of a single-vehicle road crash on the M3 at 10.30am yesterday. It said that an unmarked garda car collide with an occupant, but no one was injured.
The statement said that the driver, a member of An Garda Síochána, was taken into custody for breaching the road traffic rules. It also said that an internal investigation has begun and the garda has been suspended from the service.