Drug driver allowed spend Christmas with family by judge gets prison sentence

Shane Daly (23) was delivering furniture when a garda saw him on his mobile phone.

Judge David McHugh fined him €250, banned him from driving for five years and imposed a four-month sentence.

The defendant, of Hazelcroft Park in Finglas, had admitted driving without insurance or a driving licence as well as drug driving at North Road in Finglas on November 17, 2020.

He pleaded guilty last December but sentencing was delayed to this week.

At the time, Garda Martin Lorde told Blanchardstown District Court he spotted a driver in a white van on the M50 holding a mobile phone.

Gda Lorde stopped the driver at North Road in Finglas and when he spoke to the defendant he got a smell of cannabis.

Daly was taken to the garda station where he provided a specimen to gardaí.

It later tested positive for cannabis.

He had two previous convictions for uninsured driving.

Defence lawyer Ciaran MacLoughlin said Daly had problems with cannabis in the past but no longer smoked it.

He had not been smoking cannabis on the day, but accepted it was in his system.

Mr MacLoughlin said Daly was working delivering furniture, and had been doing a nixer when stopped by gardaí.

He had turned his life around, and was no longer hanging around with a negative peer group, he added.