One in five banned drivers has no record of holding a licence
Seán McCárthaigh
Almost one in every five motorists banned from driving on Irish roads has no record of holding a valid driving licence, according to new figures published by the Department of Transport.
A report on the recording of penalty points and disqualifications on the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) found that authorities could not link details of 18 per cent of motorists put off the road in 2024 - either by the courts or through amassing a certain number of penalty points - to a registered driver.
The figure equates to more than 1,900 motorists, including 538 in Dublin, 179 in Cork, 143 in Galway and 109 in Limerick, as well as 113 foreign motorists or individuals whose identity could not be confirmed.
The report also found that no records of holding a driving licence could be identified for 5 per cent of motorists who incurred penalty points in 2024 - a total of 8,220 individuals.
The NVDF is the main database used by gardai conducting roadside checks to verify details about drivers and vehicles.
However, the failure to match a disqualification notice with a registered licence holder makes it more difficult for gardaí to detect and prosecute drivers who continue to drive while disqualified.
The report shows that 10,907 notifications of motorists being disqualified in 2024 were reported to the Department of Transport, which oversees the NVDF database containing information on all registered vehicles in the Republic and their owners, as well as details of licence holders.
However, only 8,988 notifications were linked to licence holders on the NVDF database, including more than 2,800 learner permit holders.
As a result, 1,919 banned drivers were recorded as “unmatched.”
A Department of Transport spokesperson said the report had found that the vast majority of such cases were “Irish non-licence holders.”
The figures also show that 148,000 individuals with Irish driving licences received penalty points in 2024 as well as over 17,700 holders of foreign driving licences.
The report also revealed that more than three in four motorists disqualified from driving are failing to surrender their driving licence to the Road Safety Authority as required by law.
Just 2,014 disqualified motorists surrendered their driving licence to the RSA – a compliance rate of 22 per cent among drivers whose disqualification was recorded on the NVDF.
The report shows that only 45 per cent of penalty points imposed by a court are successfully matched on the NVDF, compared with almost 100 per cent compliance where motorists pay a fixed charge notice fine after being detected by gardaí or a speed camera.
The Department of Transport said the official figures, which show 10,139 cases in 2024 where motorists did not have details of penalty points or disqualifications matched on the NVDF database, should be placed in the context of 3.5 million licensed drivers in Ireland.
However, the report concluded improvements are possible. It noted that in 19 per cent of unmatched cases of penalty points a match may have been possible.
“Matching of driver records to the NVDF will never be 100%. Some offenders will not hold or will never have held an Irish licence,” the department observed.
It also pointed out that there are different approaches to matching in relation to penalty points and disqualifications, with “a more intense and effective process” used for identifying banned motorists.
“While different levels of success are not ideal, it is correct to invest resources in disqualifications over penalty points given the relatively serious nature of the former compared to the latter,” it added.
The department also noted that a driver disqualified by the Courts is aware that they have been banned from driving, regardless of whether a match is found on the NVDF records.
The spokesperson said it would be undertaking further work to examine ways to improve matching performance.
This will include examining if further information can be included on the file sent by the Courts Service in relation to notifications about penalty points, and if it would be cost-effective to extend the manual process conducted by the RSA about court disqualifications to penalty points.
