{"id":266527,"date":"2026-01-27T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:22:08","slug":"former-td-colm-keaveney-avoids-jail-after-pleading-guilty-to-drug-driving-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266527\/","title":{"rendered":"Former TD Colm Keaveney avoids jail after pleading\u00a0guilty to drug driving \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Former TD <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/colm-keaveney\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/colm-keaveney\/\">Colm Keaveney<\/a> has been ordered to carry out 220 hours of community service in lieu of a prison sentence for driving under the influence of cocaine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Keaveney (55), of Kilcrevanty, Tuam, Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/galway\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/galway\/\">Galway<\/a>, pleaded guilty to the charge at Tuam District Court on September 9th, in addition to two counts of driving with no insurance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge James Faughnan ordered the former TD on Tuesday to carry out community service in lieu of four months in jail. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He was due to be sentenced at a sitting of Tuam District Court last month but the case was adjourned as the resident judge, Judge Faughnan, who had dealt with the matter in previous sittings, was absent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The sentencing had earlier been adjourned, in November, for the same reason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The case had been adjourned 10 times before Keaveney entered guilty pleas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Keaveney was arrested after being stopped at a checkpoint at Cummer near Tuam on June 12th, 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court had previously heard that Keaveney failed a roadside drug test in September 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">On another occasion in July 2024 Keaveney was stopped for failing to display a valid insurance disc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard he subsequently produced an invalid certificate and was later arrested by appointment and charged with driving with no insurance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Keaveney has two previous convictions, the court has heard. He was fined \u20ac250 and banned from driving for four years in relation to an incident in Boyle, Co Roscommon, last October. On that occasion, he failed to stop after a collision with another vehicle and subsequently failed to provide a blood or urine sample.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">First elected to the D\u00e1il as a Labour candidate in 2011, Keaveney then became an Independent before joining Fianna F\u00e1il in 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He lost his D\u00e1il seat in 2016 but was elected to Galway County Council as a Fianna F\u00e1il candidate in 2019. He did not seek re-election last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former TD Colm Keaveney has been ordered to carry out 220 hours of community service in lieu of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4500,42,43,40,38,41,39,22136],"class_list":{"0":"post-266527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-galway","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories","15":"tag-tuam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266527","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=266527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}