Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 January 2026
365. Deputy Michael Murphy asked the Minister for Transport following his report on 10 December 2025 titled "Recording of Penalty Points and Disqualifications on Driver Records" of the 14,527 notifications he received from the Courts Service on penalty point summonses in 2024, the number of notifications that included a driver number. [4298/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs Minister of State with responsibility for International & Road Transport, Logistics, Rail and Ports, I wish to advise that the report noted the Deputy outlines that 14,528 notifications of disqualifications were sent by the Courts Service to my Department in 2024. As the report also outlines, approximately 15% of these notifications included the unique Driver Number of the motorist.
Where a Driver Number was provided with a notification, a match was made automatically to the relevant record on my Department's National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) database. Where a Driver Number was not provided, the Department, with assistance of the Road Safety Authority, attempts to find matches. In total in 2024, 76% of disqualifications were successfully matching to a NVDF driver record.
Matching will never be 100% due to the inclusion among disqualifications of foreign licenced drivers and those driver who do not or never held a licence. As the published report referred to the Deputy notes, the Department reviewed a sample of the unmatched disqualifications. This review found that the unmatched records are almost entirely made up of drivers who do not hold or have never held an Irish driving licence.
