Drink Driving: Lock ’Em Up? Episode 579

This week Niall takes calls from listeners — some angry, some sorrowful, some torn — about the holiday-time crackdown An Garda Síochána begins every December: Operation Live-saver. With drink-driving arrests spiking around the festive season, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

One caller shared a tragic story: his daughter was killed by a drunk driver, and he demands far tougher consequences — at least three months in jail and a lifetime driving ban. “You know what you are doing and you are intentionally risking other people’s lives,” he says.

Are those demands too harsh — or not harsh enough? Should Ireland move from fines and licence suspensions to mandatory jail time and permanent bans for drink-driving?

We’ll explore how drink-driving is punished in Ireland today: the legal blood-alcohol limits, typical fines, licence bans and the courts’ standard punishments — but also whether the current system is enough when lives are lost. Then we open the lines to callers and invite personal stories, arguments for fairness, deterrence, and justice.