Mobile phone while driving in Ireland: the €120 fixed charge, the points and the court

Holding a mobile phone while driving is the second most common fixed charge offence on Irish roads. The Garda issued about 24,500 notices for it in 2025, up on the year before, and it is one of the offences the roads policing units target most often. The charge is €120 and three penalty points. Let it go to court and be convicted, and the points are five.

This guide explains what the offence is and is not, the three payment windows, the court route, and where the points leave you.

The offence: holding, not using

The fixed charge offence is holding a mobile phone while driving. The word that matters is "holding". It does not matter whether you were on a call, reading a message, looking at a map or checking the time; if the phone was in your hand, or held against your body, while the car was being driven, the offence is complete. A car stopped at lights or in traffic with the engine running is being driven for this purpose.

Hands-free is outside the fixed charge. A phone in a cradle, operated by voice or by a single touch, is not "held". That does not make it safe in law: a driver whose attention is on a hands-free call and whose driving suffers can be prosecuted under section 52 or section 53 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 for careless or dangerous driving, and those are court matters with heavier penalties. The two offences are explained in the guide to dangerous driving and careless driving.

The Road Traffic Acts also make it an offence to access information on a phone while driving, which covers texting and reading on a phone that is not being held, for example one propped on the dashboard. The current penalty for that offence, and whether it is dealt with by fixed charge or summons, could not be verified for this guide; ask the Garda or a solicitor if the notice you received describes the offence that way.

The €120 and the windows

A phone notice is a fixed charge notice under Part 3 of the Road Traffic Act 2010, usually handed to you at the roadside or posted afterwards. It gives you:

• 28 days to pay €120, with three penalty points;
• a further 28 days to pay €180 (the charge plus 50%), with the same three points;
• a summons after that.

Paying is an admission of the offence; it is not a conviction and leaves no criminal record. The three points are endorsed on your licence record 28 days after the notice of endorsement and last three years. The fixed charge notice clock turns the date on the notice into the two deadlines, and the guide to a fixed charge notice covers the windows in detail.

Because a phone offence is seen by a garda, not a camera, the notice is addressed to you as the driver. There is no nomination step.

The Garda cancels a notice only on its listed grounds (an emergency, a medical reason, a mistaken vehicle, a stolen plate, a statutory exemption). "I was only holding it, not using it" is not a ground, because holding is the offence. Disagreeing with the garda's account is a plea of not guilty in court, not a cancellation request.

The court route

If both windows pass, a summons issues and the case is listed in the District Court, usually twelve to fourteen weeks after it is applied for. Once a summons has issued, section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 offers the third payment option: pay double the original charge, €240, up to seven days before the court date, and the prosecution ends with the three fixed-charge points.

At a hearing, the garda gives evidence of what they saw, and you can give yours. The usual dispute is whether the phone was in the driver's hand at all; a garda's evidence of seeing it is evidence the court weighs, and so is yours. On conviction:

• the five points are endorsed automatically;
• the court sets a fine, within the maximum the Act fixes and taking your means into account under the Fines Act 2010;
• the court can impose a disqualification as well in a serious case, and since 31 March 2025 the points are endorsed even where it imposes an ancillary disqualification of up to six months.

The site does not predict what a judge decides on a given charge. Most phone cases that go to a hearing and end in a conviction end in a fine with the five points; in 2025 the District Court made 50,462 orders in penalty point cases of all kinds, 18,686 of them fines (Courts Service Annual Report 2025).

A conviction is a criminal record. A minor District Court motoring conviction becomes spent after seven years under the 2016 Act and does not count towards the one-conviction limit; the guide to spent convictions explains it. A conviction can be appealed to the Circuit Court within 14 days as a full rehearing at which the sentence can go down or up; see the guide to appealing penalty points and contesting a notice.

The points, in context

Three points for a phone notice is the same as three for speeding or three for no NCT, and they all go into the same total: twelve within three years is six months off the road, seven for a learner or novice driver. Two phone notices and two speeding notices paid inside three years is twelve. The penalty points calculator adds the three (or five) to what you have and shows when each block expires; the rule is in the guide to penalty points in Ireland.

Professional drivers should note that the points count against the person, so a phone notice received in a work van goes on the same record as one received in the family car.

The 2025 figures and the 2026 package

The Garda's provisional figures for 2025 show about 24,500 mobile phone notices, an increase of about 11.5% on 2024, and about 169,000 speeding notices. Phone use is one of the "lifesaver" offences the Garda enforces in its bank holiday operations, which is why notices come in clusters around those weekends.

The Government's 2026 road safety package did not change the phone offence. It covered e-scooters, certificate evidence from camera-van operators, points alongside a disqualification and non-use declarations; none of it was law on 15 October 2026, and the changes page tracks each measure. The proposal for graduated points applied to speeding only.

Insurance

Insurers ask about points and convictions at renewal, and a false answer can void the policy. Three points from a paid phone notice is a fact to disclose when the form asks for points; a conviction is a further fact to disclose when it asks for convictions. The premium is the insurer's decision and the law does not set it.

Where this leaves you

If the notice is in your hand and the phone was, the first window is the cheapest route and the three points are the lasting part. Put them into the penalty points calculator with the points you already have; if the total is close to twelve, or seven, the arithmetic may matter more than the €120.

If the phone was not in your hand and you want a hearing, the summons is the place to say so, and the five points on conviction are the risk to weigh. If you may qualify for legal aid, ask the judge for it at your first appearance; the legal aid page explains the two tests, though a phone summons on its own rarely meets the gravity test. A solicitor can tell you whether the facts give you a defence or a plea in mitigation.