{"id":178472,"date":"2025-12-07T01:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/178472\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T01:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:03:08","slug":"highly-intoxicated-limerick-man-crashed-into-wall-while-banned-from-the-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/178472\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Highly intoxicated\u2019 Limerick man crashed into wall while banned from the roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d man who crashed into a wall while he was disqualified from driving refused to provide a blood sample to gardai following his arrest, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

Luke O\u2019Brien, aged 29, of Lisheen Park, Patrickswell pleaded guilty to a number of charges, under the Road Traffic Act, when he appeared before Newcastle West Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Garda Inspector Gear\u00f3id Thompson told the court that on July 20, 2024, Mr O\u2019Brien was involved in a single car collision at Main Street, Pallaskenry.<\/p>\n

Emergency services attended the scene of the incident and Mr O’Brien was subsequently brought by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick.<\/p>\n

Whilst in the ambulance, garda\u00ed attempted but failed to obtain a breath sample from Mr O\u2019Brien, who was described as \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d.<\/p>\n

The accused subsequently refused to give a blood sample to a doctor when he arrived at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Insp Thompson said that Mr O\u2019Brien was \u201cnot really understanding where he was\u201d and that \u201cthere was some sort of confusion\u201d – possibly because of his level of intoxication.<\/p>\n

The defendant has a number of previous convictions, including five for driving without insurance, and was disqualified at the time.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:\u00a0Limerick woman engaged in harassment campaign against garda sergeant following collision<\/a><\/p>\n

Solicitor Andrew d’Arcy, representing the accused, submitted the State would have \u201chad some difficulty” had the matter been contested by his client.<\/p>\n

He said there were no witnesses who saw the crash and he described the case as \u201can unusual type of situation\u201d that was \u201cnot a straight forward road traffic matter\u201d.<\/p>\n

The solicitor told the court that his client had suffered \u201ca serious unprovoked assault\u201d a number of years ago, which had a \u201cprofound impact\u201d on him.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien, he said, suffered brain damage as a result of the assault and spent some time in hospital.<\/p>\n

Mr d’Arcy went on to say that his client had a \u201crelatively unblemished character\u201d before the assault but his life had \u201ctaken a bad twist\u201d since.<\/p>\n

The solicitor said this doesn\u2019t excuse his client’s \u201cbad record\u201d in recent years but \u201cit might explain it\u201d. Mr d’Arcy also told the court that Mr O’Brien is working in regeneration as a labourer whenever he is required.<\/p>\n

He said his client is \u201cnot a man who is sitting idly\u201d and that he tries to \u201cbusy himself\u201d whenever he can. Mr d’Arcy asked Judge Carol Ann Coolican not to impose a custodial sentence given those circumstances.<\/p>\n

He said that Mr O\u2019Brien has an underlying issue with alcohol and accepts that he needs help in dealing with that problem.
He concluded by saying that his client deserves credit in \u201cdeciding to fall on his sword\u201d by pleading guilty.<\/p>\n

Having considered the matter and noting the submissions, Judge Coolican adjourned the case until February 19, 2026 to facilitate the preparation of a probation report.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d man who crashed into a wall while he was disqualified from driving refused to provide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,4580,43,95916,13810],"class_list":{"0":"post-178472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-newcastle-west","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pallaskenry","13":"tag-patrickswell"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}