Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak briefly on this important Bill before us today, the Courts (No. 2) Bill 2016. It is sponsored by the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, and I understand that it is a collaborative effort with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. It will allow for the commencement at long last of section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010, the third payment option, which I have been calling for in this House for a long number of years. Indeed, I have replies to parliamentary questions on it dating back to 2012 from the previous Minister for Justice and Equality, Mr. Alan Shatter, and the then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar. At the time, Deputy Varadkar stated that his officials were in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, including the Department of Justice and Equality and the Garda, regarding the commencement of section 44 of the 2010 Act, and that he expected to receive an update on those consultations shortly - that was four and a half years ago. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, undertook to immediately commence section 44 as soon as the Department of Justice and Equality advised that the technical and administrative measures are resolved. Here we are, four and a half years later.

In 2013, I received a similar reply from the former Minister, Mr. Shatter. He referred to a working group on this area. The working group in question is the criminal justice (fixed charge processing system) working group, which was set up to examine the serious failings in the processing of fixed charge notices and application of penalty points for road traffic offences. Currently, if a person is convicted of a fixed charge offence, he or she is issued with a fixed charge notice indicating the detail of the offence or offences and giving him or her 28 days to pay the specified fine. A further payment period of 28 days is then permitted with a 50% increase in the fine amount - a total of 56 days to pay - if the fixed charge notice remains unpaid.

The Bill before us finally provides the legislative framework to allow for the commencement of section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010, also known as the third payment option. This will provide motorists with a third and final opportunity to pay the fixed charge plus 100% extra and, therefore, to avoid a court appearance. The third fixed charge notice, FCN, most importantly, will be issued alongside the summons for the court appearance, thereby putting a stop to the practice of those incurring FCNs attending court and claiming that the FCNs were never received. This practice generally culminated in the case being thrown out, no fine paid and no penalty points being applied to the licence. This practice is widespread and, legally, there seems to be little that a judge can do but accept the word of the person before him or her, meaning that tens of thousands of fixed charge offences were thrown out of the courts each year.

This short Bill will amend section 1 of the Courts (No. 3) Act 1986. Section 2 of the Courts (No. 2) Bill 2016 inserts a subsection into section 1 of the 1986 Act, making six amendments in the administrative procedures of printing and issuing summonses.

Paragraph (a) of subsection 2(a) provides for information sharing to allow a print service provider print a summons and fixed charge notice. Paragraph (b) allows for the processing of batches of summonses and paragraphs (c), (d), (e) and (f) make provisions for the definitions around the effecting of the summons and true copies of the summons. Section 3 of today’s Bill deals specifically with the issuing of a summons to a member of An Garda Síochána when he or she has allegedly committed a road traffic offence. A summons to a garda will no longer have to be signed by a judge as is currently the case under section 88(3) of the Courts of Justice Act 1924.

I warmly welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy passage through the House. However, I will use the opportunity of this debate to raise five or six closely related matters, which I hope the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality will address. The Departments of Justice and Equality and Transport, Tourism and Sport must work closely together to administer road traffic law. On 3 November last, I tabled a parliamentary question on the wording of the summons to inform persons of the legal requirement to present their driving licence to the court and the penalties for failing to do so. This is section 22 of the Road Traffic Act 2002. The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality replied on the issue but the matter still has not been effectively addressed. When will this be rectified? The enforcement of section 22 remains a huge issue in our road safety legislation.

In November 2015, Judge Marie Keane dismissed the 21 cases before her for the offence of failing to produce their licences in court and ruled that the summonses were "fundamentally flawed", because a person who comes before the court is entitled to know the consequences that flow from not having produced their licence. What has been done since this ruling to correct the wording on the summonses so that the Garda can begin to prosecute again? In November 2015 a reply from the Tánaiste stated:

I am informed by the Garda authorities that in the first instance an offence wording is created by An Garda Síochána. Following approval by the DPP the approval details are forwarded to the Courts Service for offence coding, and returned to An Garda Síochána for uploading onto the Garda Pulse System. This then allows a member of An Garda Síochána to apply for a summons by inputting the specific offence code assigned to the particular offence in respect of which they are creating the summons for.

It is a complicated system.

It is now 15 months since Judge Keane’s ruling and despite many promises of an "urgent report" I have not received an update. In a reply to a parliamentary question on 15 November 2016 the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality said:

Insofar as the wording of the relevant summonses is concerned, An Garda Síochána is engaging with the prosecution authorities in relation to these issues, which I understand are complex ones, and not necessarily related solely to the wording of summonses. As the Deputy will be aware, I have asked An Garda Síochána for an urgent report in this regard. In addition, the wording on the summonses and other related matters are being considered by the Fixed Charge Processing Group which is jointly chaired by my Department and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

What is the outcome of this consideration by the group on this matter?

It is the responsibility of An Garda Síochána to serve summonses. Figures from replies to parliamentary questions show that this is not being done in 37% to 85% of traffic cases across the country. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality must work together on this ineffective system and try to find solutions. It is difficult to understand how the reasons put forward by An Garda Síochána could account for the figures. I will offer some random examples. In Manorhamilton it is 85%. It is a small area where most people are likely to be known to each other and to the gardaí and where the residents are unlikely to live in multi-occupancy dwellings inaccessible to gardaí. The non-serving rate is 67% in Skibbereen and 62% in Ballaghaderreen in County Roscommon. The reason provided to me in a reply to a parliamentary question on 15 November 2016, in which I requested information on speeding summonses, was:

The figures provided by the Courts Service indicate that a significant percentage of cases are struck out for non-service. My officials are seeking clarification from the Courts Service and An Garda Síochána as to the reason for this figure being at this level. It should however be noted in this respect that a working group [yet another working group] was established by An Garda Síochána to examine how the rate of summons serving can be improved and to regularly monitor the level of summons service throughout the country. While this group has reported improvements in the rate of successful service of summons, challenges remain in relation to effecting service of summons in certain circumstances, relating to such matters as inaccurate address data, persons moving address, or living in multi-occupancy dwellings or other settings which make service difficult. In addition, certain persons will take steps to evade service.

In the period from January 2015 to October 2016 there were 66,771 offences for speeding listed in courts across the country. Of these, there were just 14,572 convictions, which is just over 20%. Of those convictions only 6,165 had their licences recorded, which is 42%, 2,923 were dismissed, 30,618 were classified as "strike out not served", equating to 45% or almost half, and 676 received the court poor box, which is technically illegal. The total number of convictions at 48,745 means that 73% of offences listed resulted in non-conviction.

The third matter I wish to raise relating to the performance of the Department of Justice and Equality in respect of road traffic law concerns figures released by the Road Safety Authority, RSA, which show that 96% of drivers disqualified in court in 2015 did not surrender their licences. The figures were provided to the great campaigning road safety group PARC - Promoting Awareness Responsibility and Care on our roads. Susan Gray and her colleagues in PARC have done much work to bring forward road safety issues in the House. Recent figures released by the RSA to The Irish Times showed that almost 8,000 drivers who have multiple concurrent disqualifications on their licences continue to flout the law by driving. These are drivers who were ordered off our roads for drink driving or causing death or serious injury or both. The Irish Times also reported that banned drivers are responsible for the deaths of between 11 and 14 other drivers every year. We already know that 521 drivers were disqualified at the time they were convicted of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury in the period from January 2013 to March 2015. To date, PARC and I have failed to establish how many of those drivers were already disqualified at the time they caused death or serious injury or both. Perhaps that is another matter the Minister could progress urgently.

The Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, has always been a thoughtful and assiduous Member of the House and is equally so as a Minister of State. There appear to be huge lacunae in road traffic law enforcement and administration which must be resolved. I mentioned to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport earlier today that he had promised four legislative measures relating to his responsibility for road traffic law. Perhaps it is time to have a consolidated Bill. It is something on which the Government could work. I tabled a parliamentary question for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, in which I requested the full report on the research the RSA had carried out on the 8,000 figure I mentioned earlier. The Minister replied:

I am aware of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) research indicating that there may be as many as 8,000 disqualified drivers on our roads, and that a number of them have been responsible for fatal or major collisions in recent years. My Department has been advised by the RSA that this research was not the subject of a formal report, and the RSA research included the use of data provided by the National Vehicle and Driver File to the RSA. ... I would point out that under new powers provided to the Gardaí under the Road Traffic Act 2014, the Gardaí (since June 2015) can now arrest drivers who are detected driving while disqualified.

Another issue is the fact that gardaí have informed PARC representatives that occasionally when they try to check an individual on the Garda PULSE computer system, it is not possible to identify the correct person. They say this is due to the fact that there could be several recorded dates of birth for that person and differing addresses. This results in multiple PULSE identifications and they say that it is not possible for gardaí to be confident they are identifying the correct person. What is being done to identify multiple identifications on the Garda PULSE computer system? Is the Minister sure that the PULSE system is fit for purpose? We have not supported An Garda Síochána sufficiently regarding IT structures in the computer and Internet age. The Minister of State will recall that it was not long ago when he and I were attempting to contact our local Garda headquarters and we were unable to e-mail them. It is only in the last few years that we have been able to e-mail our local superintendent or chief superintendent.

I also recently requested an update on the drink driving cases which were affected by the issuing of Garda reports in both Irish and English, but I have been informed that the information I requested cannot be provided.

However, the Tánaiste told me that the matter was determined by Mr. Justice Noonan at the High Court on 21 September 2015 and the Garda Síochána sought to have all cases where this issue had relevance before the courts at the time adjourned pending an appeal of the High Court decision. In certain cases, the presiding judge did not accede to that request and the matter was struck out or dismissed. The Tánaiste also informed me that “following the judgement by Edwards J., at the Court of Appeal on 10 May 2016, all district officers liaised with the respective law officers in so far as the cases in their districts were affected by the outcome of these proceedings to ensure that all cases affected by this issue, which have not been finalised, are brought back before the courts." It would be useful if the Tánaiste were able to come here and give us an update on this serious matter, which has led to another major gap in people owning up to their responsibilities regarding infractions of road traffic law.

Before Christmas, we had a very good discussion in the House, in which Deputy Jonathan O'Brien and others participated, on the Road Traffic Bill 2016. Most people still feel more emphasis needs to be put on learner drivers. I have recently been asking questions around this and have been trying to determine the extent of the problem with unaccompanied learner drivers being involved in fatal and serious road traffic collisions. At the beginning of this year, I received a reply to a parliamentary question from the Tánaiste informing me that the number of fatal traffic collisions involving unaccompanied learner drivers was seven in 2012, four in 2013, eight in 2014, 16 in 2015 and seven up to 29 November 2016. The number of unaccompanied learner drivers involved in serious road traffic collisions was 22 in 2012, ten in 2013, 32 in 2014, 24 in 2015 and 24 up to 29 of November 2016. We also had a long discussion about insurance of cars being driven by learner drivers during the lengthy discussions on the Road Traffic Bill. I hope the changes in the law will move towards eliminating this scourge and the numbers of deaths and serious injuries being caused by unaccompanied learner drivers.

I would like the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality to urgently examine a number of provisions, such as addressing the wording of summons and the timeframe to have changes completed, for those to be issued along with the fixed charge notice, but also for those to allow prosecutions under section 22 of the Road Traffic Act 2002 to recommence. They could be included in the Bill, if the Tánaiste were to take swift and decisive action. I would also like to see a provision stating that where the licence or permit is produced on conviction, all the details specified in the licence or learner permit, including the licence number, must be forwarded by the court to the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, and the Road Safety Authority, RSA, within five working days, including all of the names and contact details of the persons who failed to produce their licences on conviction. I tried to put it into the Road Traffic Act before Christmas. For this, we would need a direct or electronic link between prosecutions as recorded on the Courts Service's criminal case tracking system, CCTS, and the fixed-charge notice originally issued by the Garda Síochána. We need stronger penalties for those who do not surrender their licences and improved follow-up procedures to ensure that proper tracking is taking place of licences and the endorsements received on the licences.

Last year, we were all very disappointed that the number of deaths on Irish roads increased so significantly to 188. Deputies on all sides made huge efforts to reform road traffic law during the previous decade and a half. We brought the numbers down from the horrendous levels that used to apply in the 1960s and 1970s. Still, last year 188 families were totally devastated and thousands of families have members who were seriously injured. We must take a very proactive approach. The Government, particularly the Tánaiste and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, could make a significant contribution, if they wished, perhaps by consolidating road traffic law and having the courage to bring a consolidated Bill before the House. I commend the Bill to the House.

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