More than 1,000 drink driving prosecutions, which were on hold after a High Court ruling last year, can go ahead following a ruling by the Court of Appeal.
The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against the High Court's finding that drink driving suspects who were breathalysed at Garda stations should have been given a printout of their results in English and in Irish.
Mr Justice Seamus Noonan ruled that the printout given to 29-year-old Mihai Avadenai, from Swords in Co Dublin, was not evidence under road traffic legislation and because it did not include the Irish language half of the form.
But in its ruling the Court of Appeal found that while there had been a substantial deviation from the specified format, it did not materially affect the substance of the document.
Emergency legislation was brought in last September in the wake of the High Court judgment.
But that legislation had no retrospective effect.
Around 1,400 prosecutions were on hold pending this decision from the Court of Appeal.
The court was told the DPP was very anxious that the Appeal Court's order should be finalised as soon as possible due to confusion in the lower courts where district court judges where taking different views on the matter.
The issue of costs will be addressed next month.
Mr Avadenei was stopped by gardaí in the early hours of 21 April 2014 driving at 80km/h in a 50km/h zone.
He was breathalysed at Store Street Garda Station. The intoxlyser apparatus printed out the results in an English form only.
Mr Avadenei asked the District Court to refer the matter to the High Court on the grounds that the results were not a "duly completed statement" under road traffic legislation because of a requirement that the statement should be produced in English and Irish.
The High court found in Mr Avadenei's favour and the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The court's judgment, delivered by Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court would grant the appeal.
The core issue was whether a requirement that statements produced by the breathalyser apparatus should be "in the prescribed form" had been satisfied.
2011 Regulations prescribe that this form should be in English and Irish.
Those regulations were replaced by emergency legislation in 2015, following the High Court's decision.
Mr Justice Edwards said the statements produced by the machine in Mr Avadenei's case deviated from the specified format to the extent of omitting the portion in the Irish language.
He said this had no substantive or qualitative effect on the information communicated or conveyed.
He said he did not consider the deviation from the format prescribed materially affected the substance of the form. What was omitted was merely the repetition of that information in Irish.
He said the Irish part, even if it had been included would not have added anything of substance to the document and the omission could not have operated to mislead as to the contents of the document.
Mr Justice Edwards said the deviation was purely one of form rather than of substance.
The judge said Section 12 of the 2005 Interpretation Act, provided that where a form is prescribed, a deviation from the form which did not materially affect the substance of the form or was not misleading in content or effect, did not invalidate the form used.
He said he was of the view that the High Court judge was wrong to hold that this section had no application in the present case.
