This article is from page 15 of the 2011-08-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
THE NUMBER of cars seized by gardaí has increased by almost a third so far this year, compared with last year. So far this year, 304 vehicles have been seized by gardaí, compared with 240 during the same period in 2010.
The cars were seized mainly due to them not being taxed, if those driving them were not insured, or because they had serious mechanical defects.
“A lot of those would be driven without insurance or defective or company cars being driven by crimi- nal gangs. There is no doubt this has resulted in preventing serious crime. The legislation is there to seize cars without insurance or tax,” said the head of the Clare Garda Division, Chief Superintendent John Kerin.
He said that gardaí are considerate when seizing cars that are not taxed and drivers are given every chance to ensure the tax is paid.
“The tax would be out a long time before the gardaí would seize a car. If the tax was out for one or two or three months because of the recession, there would be an understanding,” he said.
He said that the increase in seizures is “partly due to the recession. People can’t afford to tax them. There are a lot of young people who were working on building sites and who are now unemployed but still have the cars,” said Chief Supt Kerin.
The figures have emerged in the wake of figures from Clare County Council showing that 102 cars were abandoned during the whole of last year.
“Clare County Council has a procedure in place from receipt of complaint to resolution, involving the issue of a warning letter to the relevant vehicle owner and removal if the abandoned vehicle remains in place past a specified period of typically seven days,” said a council spokesperson.
Meanwhile, thefts from cars are on the decrease in County Clare, by 28 per cent. So far this year, there have been 89 thefts from cars, compared with 123 last year.
Gardaí are attributing the decrease to increased vigilance.
“We have placed a lot of emphasis in the past couple of years in putting patrols in place in tourist areas,” said Chief Supt Kerin.