Gardaí To Have Details On Car Insurance Policies
The Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland is to start sharing details of drivers' insurance policies with Gardaí.
From today, the details of three million vehicles and five million drivers will be provided to the force, and will be updated every evening.
The data shared includes the name, address and policy number of the driver, the validity dates of the insurance and the covered vehicle's registration number.
Transport Consultant, Conor Faughnan, says this is going to be a very useful tool for spotting uninsured drivers:
"The Gardaí who've had automatic number plate recognition in their cars for years but you know, they could do nothing with the information.
"Now they can [which] means the Gardaí will immediately be able to see as soon as they see a registration number, whether that car is insured, what the insurance policy is and who's insured to drive it.
"And if [the car] passes by and it's not insured, it'll ping and the Gardaí can go after that driver.
"We should have had it years ago. It's been a long time coming."
