Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne, who is accused of drink driving over the summer, has appeared in court and has had a hearing date set.
In an earlier statement, the Wicklow-Wexford TD said gardaí arrested him at a mandatory checkpoint in the city centre while he was travelling from his hotel in Dublin to Dublin Airport.
Byrne (52) of Ramsgate Village, Gorey, Co Wexford, appeared before Judge Tom McSharry at Dublin District Court on Monday.
He faces a single charge stating that on May 28th, at Pearse Street Garda station, within three hours of driving a 2025-registered car, the concentration of alcohol in his urine was 156mg of alcohol per 100ml, exceeding the statutory limit of 67mg.
The offence, contrary to section 4(3)(a) & (5) of the Road Traffic Act 2010, is punishable by a fine of up to €5,000, and/or a maximum six-month jail term.
He sat silently on the defendant’s bench while his barrister Peter Paul Hughes addressed the court.
Counsel confirmed it was the first date the matter was before the court and he sought an order for disclosure of the prosecution’s evidence.
McSharry acceded to the request and ordered compliance by February 27th next, telling prosecuting Garda Anna Murphy to hand over the material to Byrne’s solicitor.
The judge then scheduled the politician’s hearing for March 23rd, 2027.
Byrne, elected to the Dáil in 2024, stood down as chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence after his arrest.
In a political career which started when he was elected to Gorey Town Council in 1998, Byrne served as a senator for the Cultural and Educational Panel from 2020 to 2024.
As a TD, he represented the Wexford constituency in a 2019 byelection but lost his seat in the general election 71 days later, regaining it in 2024.
In an interview to be broadcast on South East Radio’s Morning Mix on Tuesday, Byrne told Alan Corcoran: “I believe I should be accountable for my actions. I think the issues that would have happened in May are well publicised and I’ve been cooperating all the time with this case. I wanted to deal with it and to move on, whatever the decisions were.”
There were “two difficulties coming into the case”, said Byrne.
The first was that his side had not received disclosure, the evidence relating to the case that they had sought in advance of it, he said.
“A more difficult issue was that, when I arrived at the court, I happened to know the judge. Obviously, there is a difficulty there for the judge and for myself in case that there was any perception that it wasn’t appropriate for Judge McSharry to hear the case. Therefore, we said that we would look for an adjournment. I would have liked the case to be dealt with.”
Byrne said he could not talk about any of the details of the case as it had been adjourned.
He would “deal with the consequences”, he added. “I have made clear before that drink driving is wrong.”