The Sunday Tribune understands that all summons cases due for mention in Court 51 at the Richmond court were struck out on Friday morning because several judges were absent after phoning in sick.

Among the cases dismissed was a prosecution against a well-known Finglas criminal who was in court for several breaches of the Road Traffic Act. He was summonsed to appear for having no driving licence, insurance or NCT cert. The man has more than 20 previous convictions for road traffic offences, including a number of convictions for drink-driving.

A judge who was due to sit in another court appeared in Court 51 for the 10.30am sitting and informed the several dozen gardaA- present, as well as dozens of defendants, that the cases down for the day would not be proceeding because there was no judge to hear them. He struck out all the cases listed.

Some 300 cases had been struck out by Judge John O'Neill the previous day in the same court, also because of a shortage of judges.

Court 51 sits as a summons court, meaning that all the people appearing there have been issued with a summons through the post by the prosecuting garda. Most of the offences are relatively minor and the majority relate to road-traffic breaches, such as failing to produce a driving licence or tax cert.

GardaA- have the option of relisting the cases, but this is unlikely because most of the offences would have taken place many months ago. There is frustration among ordinary gardaA- over the practice of dismissing all cases if a judge is not available, although it rarely happens. Many of the gardaA- in court on Friday had been on days off or were working overtime especially to attend the court sitting.

Frustrating One garda said: "We have to attend court regardless of whether we have been working until 6am that morning or on a day off. A lot of the guards there could have been on the streets instead of spending hours travelling to a court that wasn't going to sit.

Everybody gets sick, but there is nothing more frustrating than going to court only for all the cases to be struck out. We have gone through the effort of filling out the paperwork and issuing summonses and the people have taken days off work to appear and have to wait to see if they will be summonsed again."

A spokesman for the Courts Service confirmed that cases had been struck out due to a shortage of judges because of illness.