Transport company pleads guilty to breaches of driving laws

A Ratoath-based transport company has pleaded guilty in court to breaches of driving laws in a prosecution taken by the Road Safety Authority.

Johnston International Transport entered the plea at Navan District Court on Friday. There were three charges before the court. Two of these were struck out and the prosecution proceeded with a third.

Solicitor representing the RSA David McEntee said that in a roadside stop operated by Gardai on 23rd June last year at Balinasloe. The driver was asked for his driver’s card. It was obvious the card was out of date, the solicitor said. There were no previous convictions.

A lawyer for the company said that the driver concerned had already been dealt with in the district court in Dublin. He said that when that driver started with the company three years prior to the offence a valid driver’s card had been presented. It was up to the driver to keep that card up to date in a rolling process over five years. The driver had failed to do that.

The situation was “down to administration”. It was not an offence where his client, the company, was trying to disguise anything, the lawyer said. There had been an very early guilty plea and the company had no previous convictions.

Mr Johnston, the owner of the company was 32 years old. He had been a mechanic but had gone into haulage with six trucks and seven employees and is a driver himself. He had now taken over some of the administration himself in a company that had been established three or four years ago.

Judge Eirinn McKiernan directed the company to pay €350 to the voluntary MCDAR organisation along with €200 costs and then struck out the charge against it.