John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome Mr. John O'Brien and apologise to him for the delay.

Mr. John O'Brien:

Not at all.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Brien may make his opening statement.

Mr. John O'Brien:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. Perhaps I should state at the start that I am not a Garda spokesman, although I may sound and look like it occasionally. Any of the views that I have are purely my own, but they are informed by 38 years in the Garda Síochána.

I was the head of the Garda national traffic policy bureau in 1997, which was the first time the bureau was put in place to deal with road fatalities. Having left the Garda in 2008, I did a review of the fixed charge penalty system for the Office of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. That formed the basis of my interaction with the committee.

All of the controversy with which we have become familiar in the past 12 months was totally avoidable because all of the issues were raised in the GSOC report, which made 18 recommendations and eight or nine significant findings. It was all flagged in the report but the report never saw the light of day. It is not because I wrote it that it is a particularly good report, but it did highlight the issues that are in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s four reports. We had a long sequence going back to 2008, when the report was carried out, and it was presented in 2009. What happened in the past year was totally avoidable because we had seen all of the symptoms. We knew that the system was creaking and leaking.

I will spend a few minutes on the fixed charge processing system. It is essentially a system that takes between 400,000 and 500,000 inputs every year from fixed-penalty notices. When I was a young garda they were called on-the-spot fines. Not all of the fixed charge penalty notices are of supreme relevance to road safety or road deaths. They are for a whole series of minor road traffic offences that in themselves would not merit going to court in the first instance but within that there is a relatively small cohort of speeding offences that are now detected by the Garda Síochána and by the GoSafe consortium by means of non-intercept, which means there is no connection between the detecting person and the individual that is detected.

I said the system was leaking badly, but the most classic mistake is that the worst offenders escape. That has been the case since 2007 and I am sure it was the case before that. They escape by ignoring the system. They simply do not interact. The other weakness in the system is that registered companies are not persons so under the system they cannot be prosecuted or processed as an offender under the fixed charge penalty system unless a series of other processes take place.

I also wish to say, perhaps a little controversially, that every time a detection is made for speeding using the automatic detection systems of the Garda or GoSafe, it records particular kinds of information – the number of the vehicle being used, the speed, obviously, and also a photograph of the individual involved. I heard this morning some comments on how difficult it is to get third parties to admit who was driving the vehicle and I heard suggestions about amendments to the 2004 Act and another point relating to the 2010 Act. Frankly, the obligation has always existed for registered owners to say who was driving. If I as a garda in the old days had alleged that someone was using a vehicle then there would have been a legal obligation to tell me who was using it.

The point is that we are using a legal system rather than an administrative system to handle the fixed charge penalty process. One of the recommendations I made in my GSOC report is that we should seriously consider using an administrative system that does not have any of the inhibiting factors of the criminal law system and allows for a much earlier reaction. The Central Bank has the power to vote penalties under the administrative sanction process to financial institutions that involve massive fines and other sanctions. That is at the top end of the business cycle. It is entirely possible that we could use the fixed charge penalty system as an administrative process, as is done in other countries, and then for the minority of offences that are not resolved in that manner we would use the criminal process.

When I spoke to the president of the District Court and the chief executive of the courts body in 2008, they told me that the system was creaking and that they did not have the courts or the capacity to handle it. In those circumstances, is it any wonder that the worst offenders under the system escape? The system is only designed to catch and deal with the compliant. For speeding, that is about 73%, and for all offences it is about 70%. That is an inherently unfair system because the worst are escaping the sanctions of the system. It is primarily a systems failure. There are no exotic points of law involved. Penalty points were introduced in 2002 and if one was doing a review of a system one would ask why it was being done in this way because it did not have the capacity to deal with the throughput.

I mentioned the GSOC report which I authored. I had an opportunity to look at the Comptroller and Auditor General’s latest report. I am fully in agreement with the remarks he made on the €11 million subvention by the Exchequer to the GoSafe camera consortium because the return from its detections did not meet the threshold. In essence, the taxpayer had to put €11 million into the system to keep it afloat. The contract runs until 2015. I have no issue with the commercial side of the matter. It simply seems that we are getting the wrong end of it.

According to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s figures, the GoSafe figures account for 22% of speeding detections, while the Garda’s own cameras account for 24%. Numerically, I believe there are something in the range of 40 GoSafe camera vans, and the number of Garda robots, which is an unusual title – we used to call them GATSO – was 24%. Gardaí also detect speeding by hand-held laser or radar. Effectively, eight or ten Garda speed detection vans detect more than 40 GoSafe cameras. That is the logic. There are approximately four times as many GoSafe vans as there are Garda vans, and individual gardaí also detect a range of offences.

We are essentially operating what I call the Victoria model, which is something I saw in Australia. It is a road safety system predicated on a number of key points. A robust enforcement policy by the police is required, as is a strong legal system to underpin it; a high degree of education and awareness was part of the process; there was a very strong IT system, so that one had a strong platform; and also it had the key element of being an administrative system rather than a criminal legal system. That has produced enormous success. Clearly, there have been aberrations in the system, but the saving of lives and the reduction in serious injuries has been due to the effectiveness of the system. Nothing is perfect. Last year 190 people were killed, which is 190 too many, but the highest number of fatalities ever in this country was in 1972, when more than 600 people were killed on the roads in this country. We have come a long way in the meantime, rightly so.

I am in total agreement with the sentiment expressed in the Garda Inspectorate report on the faults and failings in the cancellation policy that was being employed. It is as clear as crystal that there were many inconsistencies and there was no firm policy dictating how the system operated. However, I am not in agreement with the Garda Inspectorate’s main recommendations for the future. I am quite surprised that its report, which is a far-reaching one, was accepted without debate. It was submitted into the public domain and accepted. It dealt with two separate issues, and perhaps therein lies the problem. I do not agree with the statement in Chapter 4 of the report that road traffic enforcement is not a priority for the Garda. That is totally wrong. Neither do I agree with the business case with regard to the €11 million it currently costs the taxpayer to keep the GoSafe cameras going, including the proposal that the speed detection system be transformed into a civilianised process and the Garda leave the robot vans at home. The business case does not make sense, in addition to other issues.

It makes neither economic nor operational sense and certainly does not help the targets under discussion.

While I apologise for being so lengthy, I wish to cite the comments this morning of the chief executive of the Road Safety Authority, RSA - I have a similar diagram at the end of my report - when she stated that notwithstanding the personal loss and impact on families and society in general, reducing the number of serious collisions on the roads also has a significant financial benefit. She stated that a recent evaluation of the Road Safety Strategy 2007-2012, commissioned by the RSA, states the impact and effectiveness of the strategy equates to the saving over that period of 686 fatal collisions. The numbers, in terms of people, probably would be approximately 700 because some collisions, unfortunately, have multiple victims. Her point is that over that period, there has been this enormous saving. In other words, had we done nothing and had we not introduced the Victoria model, this is the threshold at which we now would be. She also estimates, according to what I call the Goodbody formula and which has been around for a while, that the saving to the Exchequer has been approximately €1.85 billion. While I imagine this is a new figure for some people, the audited figure for the cost of a single fatal accident is extraordinarily high. She goes on to state that in the period 2003 to 2013, road fatalities reduced from 335 to 190. In my view, no other country that started from a comparable base has reached that target. Even Victoria, on which I was modelling our approach way back in the late 1990s, has not achieved that target. She states this represents a decline of 43% and that over the same ten-year period, injuries reduced from 8,262 to 6,962, which represents a 16% decline. I acknowledge that numbers do not speak to the tragedy and absolute horror of somebody losing someone in a road collision or of somebody being injured in a life-inhibiting way for the rest of his or her life, but these are figures that equate with success, not failure. The whole point at which I became involved in this thing is when I heard all of the controversy erupting around this time last year. I thought this would undermine confidence in the system and within the Garda Síochána and simply was bad for the process in which we are involved. I wanted the opportunity to make these points in a public forum and hopefully they are of some use to the committee.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O'Brien.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I apologise for being late as with all the votes that took place earlier, I assumed this was going ahead earlier and, consequently, I apologise. I thank Mr. O'Brien for his attendance. I heard the first part of his address on the monitor in my room but missed the piece while I was coming from there to here. I appreciate his attendance. I also appreciate in particular the table he provided on road deaths because it demonstrates the huge progress that has been made. I had quite forgotten that in 1972, when I still was a teenager, so many people were killed on the roads. At that stage, I was a regular cyclist so perhaps I was lucky to get through.

I wish to ask Mr. O'Brien a question about the speed camera issue because it has been suggested that he would be the best person to ask. Can he tell the committee something about his views on the GoSafe consortium and how it is operating? For example, I do not like the fact that it now is controlled by an entity based on the Isle of Man. If I understood him correctly, Mr. O'Brien appeared to indicate it was not that appropriate that some of this work should be hived off to a non-Government body.

Mr. John O'Brien:

I am very reluctant to comment on the commercial interactions because I am now involved in the commercial field and appreciate that commerce is something that drives the economy. However, in simple, objective terms, if one wants to compare the Garda cameras and the GoSafe cameras like two horses in a race, in my opening remarks I stated there are something like 40 GoSafe camera detection vans and something like eight to ten Garda vans - I am unsure of the exact number. The return from the Garda vans, with one fourth the number of vans, is greater by a few percentage points than it is from GoSafe. In addition, the GoSafe camera operation was predicated on an assumption that did not prove to be correct, which was there would be an endless revenue stream from the detection of speeding offences. People forgot something very simple, which is that one product of good road safety policy is that detections decrease as road safety improves. The mandatory alcohol testing checkpoints are proof positive of that. When I was a young garda 40 years ago, were I to operate a checkpoint in this city on a Saturday night, probably every second car would have somebody with an alcohol problem. This no longer is the case and the same thing holds true in respect of speeding. We have reached a high degree of compliance because people understand something very simple, which is there is the strong probability of sanction if one is exceeding the speed limit. The same applies, to a lesser degree possibly, on the drunken driving side and the sanctions work from that point of view.

The other point I wish to make to the Deputy on the question of GoSafe versus Garda vans is that a great deal of collateral information is collected by the Garda speed vans that is of use right across the entire Garda spectrum. The committee may be aware of something called automatic number plate recognition, ANPR, which is now a well-known crime fighting tool in which the numbers of recognised criminals involved in organised crime or drug crime are fed into a centralised computer system. These numbers are then recognised by the camera and, in turn, that collateral information becomes of use to the greater Garda force, as well as to citizens. Consequently, there much collateral benefit to the Garda van in addition to speed detection alone. On business grounds, it does not make sense and on operational grounds, the Garda and the community are losing a significant amount of information that is useful to the community and in the fight against crime.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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In a sense, Mr. O'Brien appears to be arguing strongly for greater Garda involvement in the detection of speeding. Can Mr. O'Brien comment on the other matter that emerged in news reports about the inaccuracy of some of the GoSafe cameras whereby if they were not set up correctly, they were not actually monitoring the speeds correctly? Was this also a problem for the Garda?

Moreover, in order that I am not obliged to come in again, I am interested that Mr. O'Brien referred to Victoria because I actually have driven in that state and whatever effect the police have in Victoria, if the speed limit is 100 km/h, people do not cross that speed limit. Even if they are out in a very rural place, they chug along at 100 km/h, even if there is not a car or anything else in sight. I recall visiting a very remote town in which I had relatives and saying I supposed there would not be that many checks around there. I was told not to assume that at all.

Mr. John O'Brien:

Perhaps Deputy Dowds will give me his original question again.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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It was to do with the accuracy of both the GoSafe cameras and the Garda cameras.

Mr. John O'Brien:

My recollection is there is a very strict regime to test and maintain the validity of all technical instruments, be they speeding or recording instruments. There are international standards, which in the United Kingdom are referred to as Association of Chief Police Officers, ACPO, standards. These are the standards that have been applied for as long as I have been involved. I was involved at the start of the use of the original Garda detention vans, which were called GATSO vans after the Dutch engineer who invented them. There was a wonderful garda named Garda Ben Mackey, who was a total genius in respect of setting up this thing. He is one of the unsung heroes of this particular exchange but the standards are set empirically and they must be tested each year. If I remember correctly, there is a presumption under the Road Traffic Acts that the instrument is accurate until the contrary is proved. It is quite the reverse of what might apply in another case but the standards are quite exacting, are set and must be validated yearly.

Were I looking at this while wearing a different hat, I would be looking at the GoSafe cameras and would be asking what is the validation process, what steps does GoSafe set up and what audit process has it in place to ensure those standards are met. However, these would be pretty ordinary auditing systems because, ultimately, it is a serious matter for an individual to get penalty points or whatever. Consequently, there should be an internal auditing process that guarantees the integrity of that process. I am not aware of what it is at present, but certainly it would be a normal common or garden matter to prove one's equipment is right and to be in a position to produce that information if it is requested.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I might just come in on the point raised earlier about the rate of detection. If you look at the monitor, figure 7.3 is basically a split by each mode of detection. I suppose the two that are easiest to compare are the Garda cameras and the GoSafe cameras. Essentially, we were using the data from 2011 and 2012 broken into six-month periods. GoSafe cameras were deployed in November of 2010. There were about 70,000 detections by GoSafe cameras in the period from January to June of 2011, and then it dropped fairly rapidly. By the last half of 2012, it was down at something like 50,000 - even fewer, actually.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Approximately 33,000.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

About 35,000. If one compares that to the Garda camera figures, one can see that there was an initial detection level of about 45,000 and then it went up and has been at a level of 52,000 or 53,000 ever since then.

Elsewhere - I think this was mentioned this morning by the head of the RSA - with regard to speed testing, which is also done by the GoSafe cameras in the areas where they operate, the indications are that there has been a significant improvement in speed detections. If one goes to table 8.3 on page 113, one can see what happened between January 2011 and January 2013, because we analysed the figures by the speed limit. If one looks at the 100 km/h section, in January 2011, when speed compliance was tested, it was found that 96% of drivers were compliant with the speed limit, but by the end of January 2013, that level of compliance had gone up to 99%. It is something of an improvement and is to be welcomed. Compliance with the 50 km/h speed limit, however, went from 62% to 93%. Part of what may be going on there is that, because the speed cameras are very identifiable in specific places, people who are driving in those areas recognise that there is a stronger likelihood of being detected and, therefore, they are able to change their behaviour in the areas where the visible GoSafe cameras are operating.

Figure 8.2 shows an analysis of the number of collisions resulting in a fatality in areas where GoSafe cameras are operating and areas where they are not operating. There are many areas where GoSafe cameras are not operating and where a level of fatalities is occurring. Therefore, we raised a question about how An Garda Síochána decides the best place to deploy the GoSafe cameras, and there has been some revision of that.

The final point I would make is that it is not simply a question of the operational effectiveness of GoSafe, and I do not want to comment on that. They are not free to operate in places of their choosing. They operate where it is agreed with An Garda Síochána that they can operate. There is the element, which I think is clear in the statistics, that where it has been identified that they are operating there seems to be a higher level of compliance and, therefore, a lower rate of detection.

On just one final point with regard to the cost of the GoSafe system, the actual expenditure is working out at about €15 million a year. Where the figure of €11 million that Mr. O'Mahony has quoted comes from is that the payments related to detections amount to about €4 million a year, and that is netted off. Strictly speaking, the cost of operating the number of cameras is the gross figure. It is about €15 million to €16 million a year. I just wanted to make sure that the record was correct about that.

Mr. John O'Brien:

It is an important point to make. The point Mr. McCarthy makes is that the GoSafe cameras are in what in some countries are called KSI zones, where KSI stands for killed or seriously injured, and they are anchored there to those zones, and to move a GoSafe camera from location A to location B is a major exercise - there is a whole one-two-three checklist for things that have to be done. The problem, which is not of their making, is that there is a lack of flexibility in moving them.

The committee will be familiar with the significant problem of boy racers in some parts of the country, which I shall not name on this occasion, and this means multiple deaths involving young men. Essentially, if I was making the Garda operational decision, I would say, for the next two months or two weekends, whatever, we need to put extra resources in a particular area. It would be very difficult to put in GoSafe cameras, as I understand it, from the regime of control that they are operated under. They do not have that flexibility, and flexibility is essential in any operational scenario. One can make a plan, and they say the first casualty of any war is the plan. The same applies to an operation: one needs flexibility. An inflexible system where the majority of these detection vans are in inflexible locations - particularly, as I understand it, in urban areas - simply is not an adequate operational response to the problem.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Why is it inflexible? What is the mechanism used to transfer the van from A to B?

Mr. John O'Brien:

There is a checklist. It is probably an over-elaborate bureaucratic process stating that the following conditions have to be met.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Who sets down those conditions? Who makes the decision?

Mr. John O'Brien:

There are discussions between the Garda Síochána and GoSafe and it is probably in the contract that exists between the State and GoSafe that this is their method of operation. There may also be an intention of making their operation error-proof by being extraordinarily parsimonious in terms of how they operate, which results in inflexibility, but it is not a good operational tool.

The other side of the coin, of course, is the one that we all object to, which is what we call shooting fish in a barrel. In many areas of the country, particularly rural areas, there are speed limits that really leave a lot to be desired in terms of their efficiency, and if one wanted to take the hair-dryer approach in a particular location, one could get a lot of detections that have no real benefit in terms of the road safety component but that will keep the numbers ticking over. One has to have a balance between the rigidity that is there at the moment and the inappropriate application of speed detection measures in areas where clearly road safety is not in question.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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In our report, then, we would need to look at that process, which is cumbersome and prevents immediate change.

Mr. John O'Brien:

A redeployment in the light of operational circumstances.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The system has grown up over the time that they have been in operation. Motorists know where cameras are likely to be and they drop to the appropriate speed limit.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

There is just one other point about that. There are 40 vans in the GoSafe operation, that is 40 locations around the country where they are based. I suppose the difference with the Garda Síochána is that they are based everywhere and there are traffic units everywhere in the country. Therefore, there is more flexibility about deploying that kind of resource than trying to use a commercial operation which will obviously have to be remunerated and so on. How to get that kind of flexibility with a limited resource is going to be a challenge.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That should be in the contract.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

It should be in the contract, but if one needs to mobilise vans and drivers to be anywhere in the country when one has only 40 vans, I would imagine it is going to be a lot more expensive. That is obviously something that the Commissioner would be able to-----

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That would depend on whether one implements a wholesale relocation of all of the vans, but one is not doing so. In the case of those boy racers who spin around on the roads, where the Garda wants to deploy one of those vans, there should be capacity within the contract to allow that to happen to some minimum degree. Otherwise it is a waste of a resource.

To return to Mr. O'Brien's opening remarks, he produced a report in 2008.

Mr. John O'Brien:

In 2008 I produced a report on 2007. It went to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in 2009.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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What prevented the recommendations, which would have prevented all of what happened afterwards, from being implemented?

Mr. John O'Brien:

From the day I submitted the report until I initiated the process 12 months ago, I was not asked a single question about it. I assume people did not see it as a priority.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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GSOC asked Mr. O'Brien to produce the report. Was it submitted to GSOC?

Mr. John O'Brien:

GSOC submitted it to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform of the day.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Brien gave it to GSOC. Was it for GSOC to act upon it?

Mr. John O'Brien:

It was a report under section 106 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 and that can be authorised only by the Minister. Therefore, the GSOC report went directly to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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From the day it arrived on the desk of the Minister in 2009 up to now, nobody has spoken to Mr. O'Brien about it.

Mr. John O'Brien:

Correct.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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He has had no communication with GSOC, the Garda or anybody, and the report still rests there, gathering dust, when it could have prevented all of what was presented by the whistleblower here. The report was largely ignored.

Mr. John O'Brien:

It was totally ignored. There is an echo of this in the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General. He has done four reports, albeit with a different accent because he addressed it from a financial point of view while my remit was road safety. We can say five reports went unquestioned from the time they were submitted-----

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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They were ignored, as was Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. John O'Brien:

Absolutely. The reports were not actioned and there were no questions or follow-up.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Even GSOC, which had commissioned the report, did not question Mr. O'Brien on it at the time, 2008 to 2009.

Mr. John O'Brien:

GSOC accepted the report. I do not think GSOC would have claimed it had any particular expertise in this area. I do not mean this in a disparaging sense. I guess that is one of the reasons I was asked to do the report. I received a stiff examination from GSOC on the recommendations, findings and methodology of the report, which was fine and was what I expected. We went through a proving exercise for four months at the highest level in GSOC. Then, as far as I was concerned, the job was done and over.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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It represents the state we were in. Mr. O'Brien said the worst offenders do not bother engaging with the system and, therefore, they get away.

Mr. John O'Brien:

Yes, and they fall into two categories. The Garda Síochána have identified some of the key offenders and are taking special action against them. Although this is the wrong message to put on the airwaves, all one has to do is ignore the system. If one goes through each of them, there are eight or ten process steps, some of them time-linked. Eventually it will go to the summons issuing stage, which is the ultimate adjudication. A very small percentage of the summonses issued are served and an even smaller number of the summonses that go to court result in a conviction.

In the area I examined, only 14% of the cases that went to court resulted in a conviction. Working on the balance of probabilities, one had an 86% chance of escaping by simply ignoring the system. That is also compounded by the fact that vehicles registered to companies escaped totally. I have been making the point, and waiting for somebody to argue with me on it, that every time there is a detection we capture a photograph. Why do we not use that information?

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I wondered if I heard Mr. O'Brien correctly when he said that as one's speed and car registration are captured, one's photograph is also taken. What is preventing those who operate the system from identifying the individual driver within the company?

Mr. John O'Brien:

In any discussions I have had on it there seemed to be an uncomfortable feeling that in some way it infringed people's right to privacy. The Data Protection Commissioner has made a very clear ruling that one can retain data for as long as it is essential for the purpose for which one takes it. Instead of using the photograph we get into a convoluted process which involves, in the first instance, sending out a notice; getting no reply; trying to follow up with the registered owner of the vehicle; and perhaps getting no response from that person. If there were only one offence, it would be very easy to follow it up, but there are approximately 400,000 to 500,000 processes going into the system. In the year I examined, 2007, the fixed charge processing office in Thurles received approximately 92,000 pieces of correspondence relating to the process. Even then, it was obvious that the fixed charge processing office was under immense pressure. It has neither the equipment nor the people to deal with the enormous correspondence. In the new scheme of things it has become the central cancellation authority for the country.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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If one is speeding, one's registration and photograph is taken. Therefore companies can easily identify the driver. If somebody sends in a note denying that he or she was driving on the day of the offence, it should be possible to stop that by using the photograph.

Mr. John O'Brien:

It is very simple. We should use an administrative system and the first notice we send should say we have the relevant information, including a photograph of the driver. That would impel most of us - it would certainly impel me - to deal with the problem. That would identify the recidivists or multiple offenders. One should put a special operation in place over time to indicate the habitual offenders, who endanger themselves and the community, and deal with them by exceptions. There would, therefore, be a double product. However, it belongs in an administrative rather than a criminal law system. With 400,000 to 500,000 processes per year, the president of the District Court in 2007 said there were not enough judges or courts to handle it. The chief executive of the Courts Service said the mechanism did not exist to do so. One of the questions this morning was about the endorsement of driving licences with penalty points in court. The Courts Service was not part of the justice review group of 2005 that led to the privatisation bid that led to the role of GoSafe. It was not in on the system, so it looks like it did not have a formal input into how it developed.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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One would imagine, given that the judges are absolutely familiar with the law, that they would ask for the licences to be presented in court. Yet licenses are not being presented in court, which we were told this morning, is an offence. Where is the failure happening? Surely the judge should ask for the licence and add the penalty points to it. That does not happen. That is a simple piece of administration, is it not?

Mr. John O'Brien:

Although theoretically the reply this morning is technically accurate, the real problem is the numbers involved. A judge on a particular day in a busy District Court may deal with a range of offences. If the licence is to be endorsed, it would have to happen in the District Court clerk's office, not in the judge's office, and that is a voluntary engagement. The Judge is not the enforcer of it. The judge can ask the person to give his or her licence to the court clerk. If that does not happen, one must embark on a further prosecution process, which is very inefficient.

My solution would be to stop the vast majority of them ever getting to that stage by having quite a different administrative process that allows one to interact in a different way, using, as I said, the photographic identification as a second stage process in identifying the person.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Instead of the legal system, so that one would have that option afterwards?

Mr. John O'Brien:

Any person should have the right to proceed to a trial if they think they have been badly treated or that there was some inaccuracy in the system but, clearly, that would be the minority of cases. It is legitimate that those people would be looked after in that way.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Does Mr. O'Brien think there is any legal impediment to them using those photographs? I noticed, for example, in south Dublin, the county in which I live, that they have a whole series of cameras at important junctions and one can actually see the cars going through the junctions at any given time. In that case, I think they even disguised the actual number plates of the cars because they are primarily used for traffic control purposes, traffic movements and so on. Is Mr. O'Brien aware of any legal impediments to using them? I think I will ask the Minister for Justice and Equality that question.

Mr. John O'Brien:

No, I do not believe-----

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I agree with the thrust of what Mr. O'Brien is saying.

Mr. John O'Brien:

I do not think there are any legal impediments. I know that, historically, when I was involved in this area in 1997 and 1998, when the Dublin traffic department had made a detection and there was a dispute as to the accuracy of the detection, it then communicated directly with the person stating that "we have got a photograph of [... ] and you may want to come and see it, maybe it was not you". This was done on an ad hocbasis. I am not aware there is any legal issue. Clearly, there is a need to build in the proper safeguards that it was appropriate only for the purpose for which it was retained and all of the issues about destruction afterwards and so on. I do not believe there are any legal issues involved. If we take something that is far more intrusive, such as bodily samples or biological samples, there is a legal profile that allows one to do that kind of thing but it is proportionality. In this case, the photograph is a totally non-invasive process and it does the classic thing. It does what the system is trying to do for the next 20 steps - it identifies the driver. Why on earth would we not want to use it? Of course, we need to legal proof it to make sure it works but why on earth would we not want to use it?

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O'Brien for coming in and sharing his views with us. The report he mentioned is quite interesting. As part of our report we will seek a copy of his report from the Department and will get the backup information that is required for us to complete our recommendations. His attendance at the meeting has been very worthwhile and we appreciate it.