A serving Donegal Garda has been banned from driving for six years and given a five month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to drink-driving.

Kevin McLaughlin aged 31, appeared at Carrickmacross District Court in Co Monaghan where he pleaded to a number of charges.

These included drink driving and also dangerous driving on March, 20th, 2015.

McLaughlin, with addresses at Gartan, Churchill, Letterkenny and 30 Woodvale, Carrickmacross had pleaded guilty to the charges.

The court had heard that Mr McLaughlin, who was a serving Garda based in the area, was driving his own car which crashed into a Garda vehicle that was stopped on the roadside at Moyles outside Monaghan town.

Two gardai at the scene were injured – one seriously.

McLaughlin was arrested and found to have reading of 290 milligrams of alcohol in his blood.

In relation to the second drunken driving charge, the prosecution said the serving Garda was intercepted as he drove from the Garda Station at Carrickmacross on August 16th, 2015.

He was again found to have an alcohol level above the legal limit.

Defence Counsel said McLaughlin had service of eight years in the Gardaí and had previously completed three years with the Defence Forces.

He accepted he had a problem with alcohol but had since sought help – he also apologised profusely for what happened.

Passing sentence Judge Denis McLoughlin said the court could not ignore the “elephant in the room” and that Mr McLaughlin was a serving member of An Garda Siochana.

He sentenced him to five months in jail but suspended it for two years for drinking driving and took a charge of dangerous driving into consideration for the offences on March 21st, 2015.

On a charge of drink driving on August 16th, 2015, he disqualified him from driving for six years.