A 32-year-old Ballybane man who is already disqualified from driving for 99 years for driving without insurance was sentenced to four months in prison this week for two similar offences.

Michael McDonagh (32), 6 Fana Glas, Ballybane, Galway, pleaded guilty to driving without insurance on 27 June and again on 15 August last year, when he appeared before Galway District Court.

Garda Darren Egan told the court that McDonagh had numerous previous convictions for driving without insurance and, in March 2004, he had been disqualified for 99 years for such an offence. Judge Mary Fahy said she had not imposed the 99-year disqualification and she wondered why any judge would make such an order.

Mr William Kennedy, state solicitor, who happened to be present in court on other business, explained to Judge Fahy that there was a legal difficulty in disqualifying someone from driving for life and that, perhaps, that was the reason another judge had imposed a 99-year disqualification in this case.

Defence solicitor, Valerie Corcoran said McDonagh had a large number of siblings who all had difficulties with alcohol and some of them had even died as a result of their addictions.

Judge Fahy said the accused had a very serious disqualification already but he had continued to drive and she had no option but to impose a custodial sentence. She said that if she let him go free from the court he might feel he had a 'carte blanche' to go back driving.

She sentenced McDonagh to four months in prison for the June offence and disqualified him from driving for 12 months. She imposed a concurrent four-month sentence for the offence committed in August and disqualified him from driving for a further 12 months. "He should forget about driving," the judge added.

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