The Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to a drink-driving prosecution that was taken because a printout from a breathalyser was not printed in Irish and English.
More than 1,000 drink-driving prosecutions had been on hold after the High Court ruled in 2015 that printouts given to drink-driving suspects who were breathalysed in garda stations must be in both languages.
That decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal last year.
It found that while there had been a substantial deviation from the specified format, it did not materially affect the substance of the document.
Today, the Supreme Court said a straightforward, literal reading of the regulations indicated that the form should have contained the Irish language version.
However, the court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal and ruled that the substance of the prescribed form is the information intended to be proved in evidence.
Ms Justice Iseult O'Malley said the content was "no way misleading, confusing or unfair" and no right of the appellant was violated by its admission.
In September 2015, emergency legislation was enacted in the wake of the High Court judgment, but that legislation had no retrospective effect.
All cases initiated before that date under the 2010 Act were still liable for challenge.
Around 1,400 prosecutions were on hold pending today's decision.
Some were struck out at District Court level.
In the 2015 High Court case, 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.
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.
The 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.
