John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This material includes a large number of reports, including four reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General dating back to 2000 and the report from Assistant Commissioner O'Mahoney. The Garda Inspectorate is also looking into these matters as they relate to fixed charge notices and we have a report from the Garda professional standards unit dating from April. When one looks through all this material, it is fair to conclude, as the Commissioner stated, that the system has become better in some ways. That conclusion is proved by the figures. However, the system has also got worse in some areas. There have been marginal negative changes in respect of issues such as serving summons, inputting data, allowing offences or potential offences to become statute-barred and failing to prosecute individuals who are driving company cars. While the data shows there have been improvements, there have also been areas in which no improvements have been made. The Comptroller and Auditor General has made the same recommendations consistently since 2000, yet there has not been any improvement in some categories.

I will start with the positives. With regard to the collection of fines, the position 13 or 14 years ago was that more than half of such offences went unpunished. The rate of collection has improved, with only 20% of fines going uncollected today. The cancellation rate for on-the-spot fines was approximately 8% in 1998, whereas the most recent report cites a rate of 5%, which indicates an improvement.

When it comes to the serving of summonses, for example, in 2000 there was about 44% non-serving of summonses but it has gone up to 50% on the latest date provided to us by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Will the Commissioner start with that issue? What are the reasons and why has there been a marginal increase in the non-serving of summonses from his perspective?