Offaly truck driver fined for no insurance

A truck driver who was stopped by gardaí and found to have no insurance was fined when he appeared before Judge Andrew Cody at Tullamore District Court on Wednesday last.

Leon Thomas Delaney (43), with an address at Heathfield, Pullough, appeared for driving without a licence, failure to produce a licence, driving without insurance and failure to produce an insurance certificate.

Garda Fitzpatrick from Tullamore Garda Station told the court that on June 29 of this year he was operating a checkpoint at Cloncollig, Tullamore and stopped the defendant who was driving a white Ford rigid truck.

Garda Fitzpatrick asked the defendant to produce his driving licence and documents and he nominated Tullamore Garda Station, but failed to produce the documents within 10 days. The defendant has one previous conviction.

The court heard the defendant's driving licence does not permit operating a manual transmission lorry and only allows automatic vehicles.

Solicitor for the defendant, Aisling Maloney, said her client was driving a commercial vehicle but was not working at the time in question.

"He is missing his left arm," Ms Maloney told the Judge and said her client has insurance which allows him to drive other vehicles, but he did not know the vehicle he was operating was not covered.

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He lives in the locality, has three children and works in Co Galway as a project manager and requires his driving licence to work, Ms Maloney said.

For no insurance Judge Cody fined the defendant €750 with six months to pay and struck out the offence of no licence and took all other matters into consideration.