More than 2,400 speeding cases thrown out in Kildare due to failure to serve court summons

Kildare has one of the highest rates nationwide when it comes to the number of court appearances for speeding offences being struck out due to the failure to serve court summonses.

51% of the recorded offenders in the county between January 2015 and October 2016 were struck out over the embarrassing failure to issue summonses, meaning Kildare has the joint-fourth highest rate of failure in the country. There were 4,720 recorded speeding cases in the 22-month period within the county, though a massive 2,402 summonses failed to be served.

According to the Irish Independent, the lack of correct address information available to Gardaí is one of the contributing factors to the problem, which has prompted Garda management to set up a group to tackle the issue. Nationally, the failure rate stands at 45.8% -or 30,600 out of 66,800.

There are some striking figures that reveal the extent of the problem in some areas. In the Manorhamilton area of Leitrim, there were just 15 out of 99 recorded offenders issued with court summonses. The worst county in the country for issuing summonses is Monaghan, where 61% of people got away without appearing in court.