Mr. Peter Mullan:

I am moderately new in my role as I started in the summer of last year. It became obvious to me that the Fines Act was not operating in the manner that might have been envisaged. I raised the matter internally within our structure and the matter was raised with the Courts Service board in December last year. It directed the Chief Justice to write to the Minister for Justice and Equality in January, which he did, outlining that the Fines Act was not operating in the manner envisaged. It is fair to say the Department responded to this moderately quickly and set up a high-level working group. That work is ongoing with a view to examining solutions to this complicated issue to try to get the present system to work better or if legislative amendments are required to see how we would do this.