A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of a woman two years ago.
Kevin Callan, from Drumconrath in Co Meath, was the driver of a jeep which was in collision with a car on the Dublin to Derry road on 29 June 2005.
Miriam Traynor died instantly when the jeep crashed into the car in which she was travelling with her husband and eight-year-old son.
Her husband, Paul Traynor, told Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court that his life and the lives of his three children had been ruined following her death.
Mr Traynor told the court he had to carry his injured son away from their crashed car so he would not see the body of his dead mother lying on the road.
Garda Michael Scanlon said that Mr and Mrs Traynor had left their home in Ardee with their son and were driving south on the main Dublin to Derry road when a jeep came around a bend on their side of the road.
Mr Traynor said the vehicle was so far over that he believed it would actually pass them on the passenger side. He pulled his car away but at the same time the jeep also turned in the same direction.
Mrs Traynor died instantly in the collision.
The defendant had drunk four pints of beer and was speeding at the time of the accident, Judge Michael O'Shea was told.
Paul Traynor said everything had changed on that evening and that all the family had been severely traumatised by the death.
Judge Michael O'Shea imposed an 18-month prison sentence on Callan and banned him from driving for ten years.
