Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, the Comptroller and Auditor General reported on his findings in regard to the fixed charge notice system. The outcome is absolutely shocking. What he has revealed is that because of clearly widespread maladministration and very poor procedures, one in five motorists facing fixed charge notices are getting off. We are talking about 42,000 cases a year, and half of the summonses that were issued by the courts in regard to these were not served.

This is a crisis. It is not good enough for the Minister to issue circulars. We need to see how the hell this happened. The Minister knows that two Garda whistleblowers brought this wider issue into the public domain last year. He and the Garda Commissioner, I believe, sought to undermine their credibility and talked down the numbers that were involved, and we now see very clearly that they have been vindicated. What is the Minister going to do about this? It is a massive crisis of confidence for the public. The 71% of people who pay their fine, take it on the chin and accept they did break the speed limit, or whatever they had done to break the traffic laws, need to know that the system applies to everybody.

Will the Minister now apologise to the two Garda whistleblowers for the attempts by himself and the Garda Commissioner at that time to discredit them and to undermine the scope of what they were bringing into the public domain? Will he acknowledge they were right that there was a widespread problem with the system of penalty points in this State and that it has to be sorted out?

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