{"id":403479,"date":"2026-04-17T13:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403479\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:56:08","slug":"why-irelands-drink-driving-laws-are-facing-renewed-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403479\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ireland\u2019s drink driving laws are facing renewed pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drink driving is on the increase in Ireland, as are road fatalities. Doctors and Garda\u00ed say complex laws make catching offenders more difficult than it should be, and are calling for changes they say have yet to be addressed.<\/p>\n

High-profile cases, including the death of mother-of-two Sheila Dunne in Cork<\/a> in 2024 and Patrick Murphy in Kerry in 2023, prompted emergency doctor Eoin Fogarty to write in the Irish Examiner that the three-hour timeframe and legal complications<\/a> around collecting a blood sample lead \u201cto garda\u00ed and medical staff working against the clock in already high-pressure situations\u201d and make investigations more difficult.<\/p>\n

Investigating garda\u00ed have also described the challenges of carrying out complex investigations in the absence of a timely blood test.<\/p>\n

\n Irish Examiner southern correspondent Liz Dunphy has been covering the issue, speaking to garda\u00ed and medical professionals about what changes may be needed. She is the guest on today\u2019s Deirdre O\u2019Shaughnessy Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drink driving is on the increase in Ireland, as are road fatalities. Doctors and Garda\u00ed say complex laws…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28122,110512,79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-403479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-podcasts-home","tag-the-deirdre-o-shaughnessy-podcast","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403479","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=403479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}