Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will start again because I got cut off last night after a couple of minutes.

My party will be supporting the Bill as it will positively impact on the efficiency of court administration and will free up Garda resources for much-needed operational deployment.

Under the current fixed charge notice system, those alleged to have committed a relevant road traffic offence are issued with a fixed charge notice. Currently, fixed charge notices are issued and printed on behalf of An Garda Síochána and payment of fines is made through An Post with the notice stipulating that the relevant fine must be paid within a period of 28 days and the relevant penalty points accepted. Where the fine is not paid within the initial 28-day period, the fixed charge notice provides for a further 28 days within which payment of the original fine plus 50% may be made. Failure to pay a fine within the 56-day period, that is, the 28 days plus the further 28 days, will result in the automatic issuing of a summons requiring the alleged offender to appear in court. It should be noted that this process does not require a member of An Garda Síochána to apply for the summons to be issued; the summons is triggered automatically by non-payment of the fixed charge fine. It is estimated that 7,500 cases are dismissed annually on this ground alone. Between January and August of last year, there were 118,000 fixed penalty notices issued for speeding and since January 2013, nearly 150,000 drivers were not convicted for various reasons, including not being served with a summons at the correct address or claiming to have never received a fixed charge notice in the post. This not only means that the fine was not paid but, arguably more importantly, also that the relevant penalty points were not applied.

Under this Bill, the second fixed charge will provide a third and final option for the payment of the fine - the original fine plus 100%. For those who opt to pay, payment must be made not later than seven days before the date specified in the summons as the date on which the charge is to be heard by the court.

The issue of motorists going to court and claiming that they never received the fixed charge notice in the first place has been a long-standing source of frustration for many District Court judges. I note, in particular, the comments from Judge Patrick Durcan in Ennis District Court who has been quoted at length in the media criticising speeding motorists who are allegedly willing to perjure themselves in the witness box when giving sworn evidence that they did not receive a fixed charge penalty notice for speeding. In one case, a defendant before his court was detected speeding at 133 km/h in a 120 km/h zone on a motorway. The judge refused to accept that the gentleman in question did not receive the fixed charge notice and he fined him €750 and banned him from driving for a year. The judge also requested that the Garda inspector refer the evidence to the DPP as a result of the alleged perjury committed which he referred to in the court as a "pack of lies." In his own court, the judge ended up being obliged to dismiss 15 cases in one day where all the motorists suspected of speeding stated that they did not receive a fixed penalty notice in the post. One can understand the frustration of judges in this regard.

Of course, we can have all the legislation we want on the Statute Book to address this matter but it will be of little use if there are not dedicated resources available to ensure these laws are enforced. In December 2013, there were 804 gardaí in the traffic corps. This dropped to 742 in 2014. In 2015, the number dropped further to 716 and by November of last year, there were 674 members of the Garda traffic corps. While I do not believe there is a correlation equal to causation, it is certainly something which has to be taken into account. If we are bringing in additional legislation and decreasing the resources available to the Garda, one outcome will be the question of who will issue and monitor the fines. In fairness, the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, has stated that the traffic corps will increase by 10% this year but that will still not result in the numbers increasing to where they were previously before the economic crash. I note the Minister has put on record that her ultimate goal is to get back to that level. We understand it will not happen overnight. It will take a number of years. We certainly welcome the commitment from the Tánaiste that it will increase by 10% this year. We hope that she is proven correct in that regard because as long as the number of gardaí in the traffic corps remains an issue, the issue of enforcement will also remain an issue.

The State has been aware of significant weaknesses in the fixed charge notice systems for some years, as far back as 2013 when the Comptroller and Auditor General flagged up that one traffic offender in five was able to avoid penalties and suggested that it needed to be urgently addressed. Unfortunately, the Government did not urgently address it and we are addressing it now.

My party will support the Bill. We hope that it will prevent the practice of people arriving to court stating they did not get their notice in the post. Furthermore, we are hopeful that it will act as a deterrent to motorists speeding in the first place because that is what we must address. The Bill is to address motorists who claim that they did not get the fixed charge notice but we cannot forget that we must provide deterrents to the act of speeding in the first place. We need to reach a point where motorists are not being issued fixed charge notices to start with. In that light, we would urge the Tánaiste to look at the issues of road safety, traffic policing and penalties in a holistic manner. I note the Tánaiste has done that in the past and will continue to do so. Hopefully, this time next year we will be looking at a reduction in the number of fixed charge penalty notices being issued, as well as closing this particular loophole. For that reason, we will be supporting the Bill.

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