Mr. Brendan Ryan:

The summons is then prepared and printed by the Courts Service and a hearing is scheduled. The summons is served and when the accused person is convicted of the offence, approximately 28 days after the conviction we inform the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport of the penalty points. The notification is electronic.

To return to the Deputy's point on the collection of driving licences, section 63 of the 2010 Act provides that, where a person is alleged to have committed an offence or has been charged with the commission of an offence under the Road Traffic Act and is due to appear before the court, the court is required to collect sufficient information - that is, the driving licence number - to provide to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport so that the penalty points are applied appropriately to the licence holder.

The Courts Service has taken the following steps to implement penalty points. All summonses issued in respect of the alleged offences under the Road Traffic Act include a specific provision that notifies the accused person that he or she must bring to court his or her driving licence permit and a legible copy of the driving licence. The court registrar, following consultation with the presiding judge, makes an announcement at the start of the court proceedings to the effect that, as required by the summons, the person must produce his or her driving licence permit and a copy to the registrar once the case has been called. Where a driving licence permit and a copy are produced, we put it into our system and the information is transferred electronically. Where a driving licence permit is not produced, the registrar records that in the summons book and the minute book.

We have made the case over a long period that we view this as an inefficient use of court resources. I do not know whether the Deputy has ever been in a District Court when it is dealing with road traffic offences, but it is a very busy court with a lot of hustle and bustle. Stopping the court just to try to collect details has caused issues for busy courts. We believe it is very inefficient but, more importantly, we think it is a very ineffective way of collecting much-needed data in this area. Over the years we have pointed out to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Road Safety Authority and others the specific difficulties associated with the collection of driving licence numbers when the business of the court is being conducted. It is inefficient and, more importantly, it is ineffective.

When an accused person is convicted in his or her absence of a road traffic offence, which is a regular occurrence in court, the Courts Service is not in any position to collect his or her driving licence details. The Courts Service has consistently advocated an alternative approach, going back many years. We feel that the national vehicle driving file and the motor tax file should be linked. At the first registration of a vehicle and upon every change of ownership, the owner of a car should have to indicate his or her driving licence number. Through the years we have changed the manner in which road tax has been paid. Years ago in Dublin, one had to queue up for hours to apply to pay road tax, but mostly people now do it online, and one also provides details of one’s insurance certificate number. We are of the view that when one buys a car or it changes ownership the detail of one’s driving licence should be incorporated. That would address the inefficiency in the system and, critically, would result in driving licence numbers being available at the point of detection, either by camera or upon being stopped by a garda, and when a summons is being issued.

We did not seem to make any progress in the area for years but, following the Garda Inspectorate report on fixed-charge processing systems, a working group was set up - the criminal justice fixed charge processing group - of which we are a member, and which is jointly chaired by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Justice and Equality. The group has been actively considering the proposal and we hope it will be implemented. We feel this is the only sensible approach.

There is also the third payment option. I mentioned earlier that after 56 days, when the summons issues, if a motorist wants to pay his or her fine at that stage, unfortunately, that is not possible at the moment. That is regrettable, but it is the way the legislation is framed. Section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 provides for a scenario where the appropriate fixed charge penalty will now be paid after the issue of a summons and not later than seven days before a person comes into the court, as the court needs seven days to take the issue out of the court list. A subgroup of the criminal justice fixed charge processing group examined the option of bringing this section into effect. Based on the approach agreed at the working group, the solution will involve the Garda taking on from the Courts Service the printing of all District Court summonses - not just those relating to road traffic offences - using an outsourced printing service provider and extending the payment system to include third payment options, and then electronically updating the court case management system to remove cases from the court list when a person has availed of the third payment option. Such an approach would make it possible to automate aspects of the process that are currently managed manually and would provide assurances that the same organisation will generate the payment notice and managing receipts. Obviously the Courts Service is fully supportive of the process. From our perspective, it would reduce the number of cases that come before the courts-----