Drink-drive course take-up falls to 37% despite 1,717 NI court referrals

Northern Ireland courts referred 1,717 drink-driving offenders to rehabilitation courses in 2024, yet only 643 people completed the training, according to a government report published last week.

The 37% take-up rate was nine percentage points lower than in 2023, even though the proportion of eligible convictions resulting in a referral continued to rise. It exposes a difficult divide in one of the region's established road-safety measures: courts are directing more people towards education, but a smaller share of referrals is turning into a completed course.

The figures are contained in the Department for Infrastructure's Courses for Drink Drive Offenders Working Group Report for 2024, released on 27 October 2026. This is a report on the 2024 programme, not a claim about the number of offenders completing courses this year.

Courts are making more referrals — but participation is falling

Across 2024, Northern Ireland courts recorded 2,404 convictions for the relevant drink-driving offences and made 1,717 rehabilitation-course referrals. The referral rate was 71%.

That continued an increase visible in the historical table. In 2020, the corresponding referral rate stood at 47%. It rose to 50% in 2021, 64% in 2022, 68% in 2023 and 71% in 2024.

A legal change in June 2021 made referral automatic in qualifying cases except where the court identifies special reasons not to offer the course. That helps explain why referral and completion must be treated as different stages.

Attendance remains voluntary. An offender who does not complete an approved course keeps the original period of disqualification rather than qualifying for the reduction available through successful completion.

While referrals rose by about 1.5% compared with 2023, the report says course take-up fell from 46% to 37%. The working group considers a rate of at least 40% desirable.

That leaves a central question: why has an increasingly routine court referral failed to produce a corresponding improvement in completion?

A striking difference between individual courts

The regional average conceals substantial variation in referrals from one court area to another.

Omagh recorded 69 referrals from 78 relevant convictions, a rate of 88%. Newtownards recorded 94 referrals from 177 convictions, a rate of 53%.

The difference is 35 percentage points. Armagh recorded 84%, while Ballymena stood at 61%. Laganside Courts, which handled 583 relevant convictions, recorded 421 referrals — 72%.

These are referral rates, not course completion rates for the courts concerned. A high referral rate does not demonstrate that more offenders from that area subsequently finished their training.

Nor does the comparison prove that court staff in one location were more diligent than those in another. Case circumstances, administrative recording and other factors may contribute to differences. The published table provides the outcome, not a complete causal explanation.

It does, however, identify an unusually wide range in the way the automatic-referral system was reflected in the 2024 figures.

Most of the classes were online

The report shows that 59 courses were delivered during 2024. Of those, 56 were held online and just three in classrooms.

Of the 643 people trained, 621 completed digital courses and 22 attended classroom sessions.

The strong preference for online delivery has an obvious practical dimension. People taking a drink-drive rehabilitation course will have been disqualified from driving, which can make travelling to a physical venue more difficult.

But online access is not equally straightforward for everybody. The Department says classroom provision remains available where demand exists, including for people unable to use the technology or without internet access.

There is no basis in the report to conclude that online courses caused the drop in overall take-up. Nor would it be accurate to describe the small number of classroom sessions as evidence the training is unavailable outside Belfast. The issue is how many referred offenders actually enrol and complete the programme, regardless of format.

The promise of a shorter ban — and its limits

Under the scheme, eligible offenders disqualified for at least 12 months for relevant alcohol-related offences may receive a reduction of up to 25% in their driving ban after satisfactorily completing an approved course.

The offer is not a reduction in the severity of the offence and does not mean an offender automatically regains a licence simply by attending a few sessions. The course has attendance, payment and participation requirements, and the reduction forms part of the court sentencing arrangements.

The 2024 report lists a standard course fee of £170, with a £110 concession for some eligible participants. Those are figures stated in the historical report and should not be assumed to be current charges without checking the provider.

Some of the most interesting findings concern what participants learn. The average knowledge-test score increased from 17 out of 30 before the course to 22 out of 30 afterwards. That is a five-point increase.

Improved test scores show that participants answered more questions correctly after training. They do not by themselves establish that those individuals are less likely to drink and drive again.

What the report cannot establish about reoffending

The Department cites earlier research indicating that course completion was associated with reduced subsequent offending compared with a matched group of non-attenders. But the newly published 2024 report does not present a fresh reoffending-rate estimate for that year's completers.

There is also a statistical distinction between the 37% take-up rate and the report's separate 53% non-completion rate. The difference should not be treated as a simple accounting error or used to claim that every remaining referral ended in failure; the working group defines non-completion by its own administrative criteria, including expiry of the court-set completion period.

On what is verified, the challenge is clear enough. Referral is increasingly embedded in the justice process, but course completion remains well below half the number referred.

The most useful next evidence would explain the barriers: why referred offenders do not book, why some do not finish, and whether those who complete the course have lower reoffending rates over time.

Without that follow-through, a rising referral rate risks becoming a reassuring statistic that says less about road safety than it first appears.