Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, who is unable to be here owing to other commitments. I thank Senator Kelly for raising this important issue.

The Minister welcomes the opportunity to clarify the current position on the Fines Act 2010. The Act covers a number of issues. Part 2 of the Act provides for the indexation of fines and those provisions were commenced on 4 January 2011. Part 3, which is the focus of the Senator's question, provides for a reformed system for the payment and recovery of fines. Section 14 of the Act provides that a judge must take the financial circumstances of the person into account when he or she is fixing a fine. This important section, which is intended to ensure that in so far as possible the fine imposed is proportionate to a person's financial means, was also commenced in January 2011. The remaining sections of the Act have not yet been commenced. As the Senator knows, the programme for Government includes a commitment to provide for the recovery of fines by attachment of earnings. In the course of the preparation of the legislative scheme to provide for attachment of earnings, it became clear to the Minister that the architecture of the fines payment and recovery system, provided for in the 2010 Act, would need to be substantially amended if attachment was to operate efficiently and effectively. To that end, he examined all the aspects of the payment and recovery provisions of the 2010 Act and prepared the scheme of a fines (amendment) Bill which was approved for drafting by the Government last October. The first reform contained in the scheme relates to payment of fines by instalments. Under the 2010 Act, people had to apply to, and convince the court, that their financial situation was such that they should be allowed to pay a fine by instalments. The new Bill will instead provide an automatic right to pay a fine by instalments to everyone on whom a fine is imposed.

The next reform concerns the recovery of assets to pay a fine. Under the 2010 Act, a recovery order appointing a receiver to collect the fine, including by the sale of the assets of the defaulter, was to be imposed in all cases where a person failed to pay a fine. Rather than having receivers appointed in all cases, including those where the person has no assets to recover, the Minister decided that recovery will become one of a number of options available to the court where a person fails to pay a fine in full by the due date. The other options being attachment of earnings, which I mentioned earlier, and community service, which is already provided for in the 2010 Act. The Minister is confident the introduction of attachment of earnings, together with receivership, community service and the reforms mentioned earlier, will all but eliminate the need to send anyone to prison for the non-payment of fines.

The Minister is anxious to have the fines (amendment) Bill published and enacted as soon as possible and I can assure the Senator that, in the meantime, the Courts Service is proceeding to put in place the necessary ICT systems to support the new regime. I thank Senator Kelly for raising this important issue and hope that he can agree that the new Bill, when enacted, will achieve our shared objective of ensuring the fines imposed by the courts are collected to the greatest extent possible and that where, for whatever reason, a person fails to pay a fine, viable alternatives to imprisonment are available to the justice system.