Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

On the day the extension of penalty points into other areas is being discussed, it is absolutely critical that a transparent system is in place and that residents and citizens can stand over it. We are not making any assumptions. We are alleging, based on evidence we have seen, that a culture exists that allows one to have one's motoring offences and penalty points written off as long as one knows gardaí. That has been confirmed to me in the correspondence I have received from numerous gardaí in the past week or more. It is not the case that there was just one whistleblower - there were two. Information on ticket-fixing was brought to the attention of the whistleblower by the second person in April of this year. Nobody is saying there are no exceptions, or there should not be any exceptions. That does not explain how a judge who sits in judgment on other people could have three instances of termination, how one garda could write off a thousand cases or how 200 Garda cases could be written off over an August bank holiday weekend. I remind the House that citizens who have eight or ten penalty points have loaded insurance premiums because they do not have the benefit of knowing a garda. On the basis of what the Minister has said and in light of his inaction and that of the Garda Commissioner since January, it seems that the blue wall of silence, which the Minister spoke out about in the aftermath of the Morris tribunal, is still in place. The Minister has done nothing to protect honest gardaí who want to clean up the situation.

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