Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 7, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: "Additional amendment of section 2 of Act of 2002

4. (1) Section 2 of the Act of 2002 is amended—

(a) in subsection (8), by the substitution of "Subject to subsection (8A), where," for "Where,", and

(b) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (8):

"(8A) Penalty points in respect of a penalty point offence shall be endorsed on the entry of a person where, upon conviction of the person of the penalty point offence, an ancillary disqualification order is made in respect of the person for a period of 6 months or less.".

(2) The amendment of section 2 of the Act of 2002 by subsection (1) shall apply in respect of an ancillary disqualification order made upon conviction of a person of a penalty point offence committed by the person on or after the commencement of subsection (1).".

This amendment is being brought forward to address a weakness that has recently come to light. It is with regard to legislation on penalty points, which I referenced in my opening remarks. Let us remember the penalty points system is meant to deter bad driving. The deterrent effect comes from the fact that people realise if they accumulate enough points, they can be disqualified. For this reason road traffic offences that carry what is called a consequential disqualification, in other words an automatic disqualification on conviction, are not penalty point offences. In case the committee is wondering, they are not fixed charge offences either. There is such a thing as an ancillary disqualification, whereby if a person is convicted in court of a road traffic offence that does not carry a consequential disqualification, the judge may, nevertheless, decide that person should receive a disqualification. This is called an ancillary disqualification.

When penalty points were introduced in 2002, it was decided no points should be applied following conviction for a penalty point offence if the court imposed an ancillary disqualification. This provision is set out in section 2(8) of the Road Traffic Act 2002. It made sense, of course, to decide there was no reason to give people penalty points that could lead to the risk of disqualification when they were being disqualified anyway. Late last year it came to my attention that a number of recent court cases have involved the use of the ancillary disqualification mechanism to avoid people getting penalty points. What has happened in these cases is that a person may be given a very short ancillary disqualification, in some cases as little as one day, which then means they get no penalty points. What they are getting in exchange is a virtually meaningless disqualification. This completely defeats the purpose of the penalty points system. Therefore, I propose an amendment to section 2 of the 2002 legislation to address this.

Under the amendment people convicted of a penalty point offence and then given an ancillary disqualification will still receive penalty points unless the ancillary disqualification is for more than six months. Six months is, of course, the period of disqualification people would get if they went over the limit of penalty points. The amendment will restore the original purpose of the provisions relating to ancillary disqualifications and penalty points. Where a judge believes a person merits ancillary disqualification, that person will no longer escape penalty points unless the disqualification is for more than six months.