Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have already done what Deputy Mac Lochlainn has said should be done. I will remind him of the facts. In the interest of maintaining public confidence in the penalty point system, I put in place a further assurance and oversight mechanism, which I mentioned earlier. I appointed Judge Matthew Deery, former president of the Circuit Court, to act as an independent oversight authority of any cancellations and to look at the process. That role was created in addition to the ongoing internal audit. The judge is free to inspect at random any fixed charge notice cancellation and report his or her findings on the operation of the system to me. I put that in place and the Deputy will remember that we discussed it at committee and here in the House. I will receive his first annual report at the end of the year. I respect that the Deputy is saying he has this information but I do not believe he should under-emphasise the amount of work that has been done to change the system. We have discussed the radical changes to the operation of the penalty point system at committee, in particular the new criteria and the decrease in the number of people making decisions to three. These are in addition to the oversight that has been added and the internal audit. Those points are very important because that can be forgotten as a result of the focus the Deputy is placing on one particular person. It would not be acceptable if it was true and if there was not a good reason for it, namely, if it was not an emergency. I will have that report quite shortly, the purpose of which is to do the very thing the Deputy is requesting, namely, to have oversight and ongoing monitoring. If one puts a judge in and asks him to look at cancellations at random and how the system is operating and report on it, that is a good monitoring system. We will see what information the Deputy possesses.

Most fixed charges are being paid without recourse to court. Approximately 300,000 fixed charge notices for penalty offences are now issued per annum with an approximate overall payment rate of nearly 80%. We are also pursuing those people through the courts, for example those who do not produce licences and there are various other initiatives which we have discussed in another arena.

Deputies Clare Daly and Wallace have a particular view on the Constitution and interpretation of it but we obtained the advice of senior counsel on this. The Constitution states, "The executive power of the State shall, subject to the provisions of this Constitution, be exercised by or on the authority of the Government." That is precisely the point I have been elaborating on here - the implications of that constitutional provision.

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