Former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator Ivor Callely was fined €150 today at Dublin District Court for driving a car with no NCT disc.
Callely, who resigned from the Seanad after he was at the centre of a controversy surrounding his expenses, had received a summons for a road traffic offence of using a car without displaying a valid NCT disc, at Springdale Road, Raheny, in north Dublin, on July 7 last year.
The 53-year-old, with an address at St Lawrence's Road, in Clontarf, was not present for his hearing, but was represented by a lawyer.
A guilty plea was entered and traffic Garda Dominic Noonan told Judge Bridget Reilly that when Callely was stopped he told him that the car he was driving had passed the NCT.
But Gda Noonan said it transpired that it had not. The car was tested five days later but it failed and it was re-tested on July 14 last and this time it passed.
The former TD and Senator had thought the car, which belonged to his wife, was exempted from the NCT, however, it was clarified that the exemption in question only applied to motor tax, the court heard.
Judge Reilly fined Callely €150 which she ordered must be paid within two months otherwise he will face a 10-day sentence in default.
Last year, the Standards in Public Office Commission conducted a probe into irregular mobile phone expenses claims; the political ethics then watchdog sent a file to the DPP.
It emerged in 2010 that Mr Callely had claimed almost €3,000 in expenses in 2007 for buying mobile phones and car kits from a company that had stopped trading in 1994.
He was elected to the Dáil for Dublin North Central in 1989 but lost his seat in 2007. He did not win election to the Seanad that year but was appointed as one of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's nominees. However he did not run for the Dáil or the Seanad in the 2010 elections.
Last year, the former Junior Minister had also been fined €60 at Dublin District Court for holding a mobile phone while he was driving his car. That incident happened at Ballybough Road, in Dublin city-centre on the afternoon of October 11, 2010.
In that prosecution, on April 14 last year, the court had been told that a traffic garda saw Callely driving his blue Jaguar "holding a mobile phone to his right ear".
Garda Keith Daly had said he performed a u-turn and pulled him over at Summerhill Parade.
He had told the court that at this stage Callely was talking into a "hands-free device" but the phone he had seen him using was lying on a passenger seat.
The garda had said in that case that he did not have to prove that the phone was in use but that Callely had been holding it while he was driving which he said he had observed.
The defence had submitted that Callely had not received fixed penalty notice but the garda had told the court that he had an official record of it being sent.
In evidence, the former Senator had told the court that he had been talking into a hands-free device and he accepted that he had two mobile phones in the car.
In relation to the fixed penalty notice, he had said he did not keep a "log" of post coming to his house and would have paid the penalty if he had received the notice.
However, the presiding judge had accepted the Garda's evidence that the Callely was holding a mobile phone while driving.
