Mr. Noel Waters:

I am not in a position to be able to do so. Perhaps my colleague here might have a figure on that. We will see whether we can do that. However, it arises from the fact that in Ireland, our system to a large extent requires personal service and if the courts are not satisfied that a person has been personally served, they by and large tend to dismiss the case. We are looking at this, with colleagues, and as the Chairman is aware, the legislation in this area primarily is a matter for the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Garda and we are in the centre in the criminal justice system. However, we are looking at ways as to how we best can improve the rate of service. However, I am not making any claims to say this would be easy; it is a difficult one.

While this also may have arisen in the committee's report, we also are looking at what is known as the third payment option. For example, when people turn up in court and state they never got the summons, under the third payment option, which we hope - more than that, which we expect - will be rolled out and commenced next year, when a person gets a summons, they will have an opportunity to actually pay the penalty at that point. This will remove the defence of stating one never got it because the court will be able to say the person in question had an opportunity to pay that fixed notice on receipt of the summons, obviously chose not to do so but now is present in court. This changes the system fundamentally but is a very difficult thing to achieve; it might sound easy in saying it here but in terms of getting different computer systems to talk to one another, it is quite a difficult thing to do.

The other piece in this regard, to fill the Chairman in, pertains to cases in which people have not brought their driver licences to court. Again, we are working with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Garda to ascertain whether we can resolve that. The Garda has actually commenced taking prosecutions in respect of cases of people who have turned up in court and who have not produced their driver licences. That is work on the way and again, we are looking at an information technology-based system to try to resolve that.

Does Mr. O'Sullivan, who is familiar with the details, have anything further to say on this?