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

Clearly, as I said in my opening statement, these issues have to be addressed comprehensively. The plan, as the Garda Commissioner outlined and what we want to see implemented as soon as possible, is that letters will issue on 3 April to all those who have been affected by this. In the first instance, every one of these 14,700 cases will have to go into the District Court and then be referred to the Circuit Court. Each individual case will have to be dealt with individually and separately. In many of the cases, 96% of them, people were brought to court for a range of other issues. It was not simply the issue of one offence. There were about 5,800 cases regarding the NCT, where people were brought in for one offence. In the majority, people were brought in for a series of more serious offences such as speeding or having no insurance. All of the people who were in court were there for a variety of reasons and should have been there. There was a smaller cohort, however, where a summons should not have been issued and those people should not have been brought to court.

Each individual case will have to be assessed. I am informed that what happened in some cases, as the Deputy will be aware, is that some of those offences would have been taken into account by the judge but there would not have been a specific penalty for them. In other cases, there might have been extra penalty points. Of course, there could have been the serious situation when the penalty points reached the level where someone lost their licence. In terms of the numbers, we are not clear on the detail until all of the information emerges after the court cases. It is hoped they will be dealt with speedily.

There already has been work done with the courts to facilitate these issues being dealt with quickly. There will have been consequences for some people of varying sorts, which we have heard about in the media.

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