Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

If one takes prison days out of total population, the percentage is very small. Section 15(1) of the Fines Bill 2009 states:

If, upon the application of a person on whom a court has imposed a fine, the court is satisfied that to require the person to pay the fine in full by the due date for payment would cause undue financial hardship to the person or his or her dependants, the court may direct that the fine be paid by instalments.

Subsection (2) states:

Where a court gives a direction under subsection (1)—

(a) the amounts of the instalments and the intervals at which they are to be paid shall, without prejudice to paragraph (b), be specified in the direction, and

(b) the person to whom the direction applies shall, subject to 5 subsection (3), pay the final instalment of the fine concerned not later than one year, or such shorter period as the court may specify, after the due date for payment.

This allows us to avoid the situation that arose in the past where persons of limited means who could not pay a large fine in one lump sum were imprisoned. Discretion is given to the courts in this regard. Any person who ends up in prison for not paying a fine does not want to make payment; it is not the case that they cannot do so. Under the old system, however, people sometimes ended up in prison because of an inability to pay a fine which constituted a substantial proportion of their limited income. That was unacceptable.

See this speech in context