2 Years Disqualification for Having No Insurance

SteM

Our insurance is up in mid January and we've had 2 reminders already in the last 10 days with updated renewal costs. I expect at least 1 more reminder before the renewal date. It's really hard to forget to renew imo.

mickuhaha

It seems that unless a past offense was made, the most likely reason he was disqualified was based on not being able to provide a special reason that the judge found reasonable enough, not to impose a disqualification. The comment made by the judge about bus and Luas seems to indicate this to be the situation. The judge will evaluate your current use of the vehicle and lifestyle and not your prediction of how it may change. He will have to come up with a plan for life to exclude a car for two years.

Tell me how

Your friend doesn't need a car as much as they think they do if they only needed it for 5 minutes in 13 days.

Advice?

Tell his wife to get a license. As an aside, and I'm not joking, but I have ongoing and troublesome sciatica type pain for a long time but I have gotten on top of it now so that it rarely gives me trouble. The solution? Cycling regularly.

Also, your friend can expect to have pretty hefty insurance bills for the next few years given he won't have had a policy for 2 years and will have this on his record.

It will take some effort and planning but if their wife gets a license, if they get a bike and use public transport where possible and if they schedule their shopping or use delivery services appropriately, they can most definitely cope with this and actually might find there are some positives around it. I'm not saying it will be perfect, but it's not the end of the world either.

ELM327

No sympathy. No insurance is a very serious matter. If I were the judge I'd have given jail time

GM228

Special reasons for not imposing a consequential disqualification order must be a reason which is unique and rare, both employment status and health is not unique or rare, prior to 2016 employment circumstances or even mental health were considered, but that is no longer the case since the 2016 DPP vs Shillington [2016] IECA 289 Cour of Appeal case.

coylemj

OP, your friend was convicted in the District Court. You told us that he appealed so that would have involved the whole case getting a do over in the Circuit Court. Where the judge had discretion to overturn the conviction or to reject the appeal and affirm the conviction. If the appeal fails and the conviction stands, the circuit court judge can increase or reduce the sentence. In your friend's case, the judge heard all the pleadings but upheld the original sentence. The judge didn't really have any discretion with the actual conviction as nobody is claiming that your friend was insured on the day. So the only takeaway possible was a reduction in the sentence. Which the judge refused to grant.

As has already been pointed out by other posters, your friend's legal options are simple, there are none. Short of going to the High Court on an exceptional point of law (not his sympathy case), he can take this no further. To repeat, too harsh a sentence are not grounds for such a case, your friend had his opportunity to get relief on the sentence in the Circuit Court and lost. So we can pour you a cup of tea and shower you with sympathy but you'll achieve nothing with this thread.