Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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447. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if a motorist attends court after an alleged offence under section 63 of the 2010 Road Traffic Act and who donates to a named charity in substitution of receiving penalty points if there is then any requirement for the details of the motoring offence to be forwarded to the National Vehicle Driver File; if he has any statistics on the number of drivers who are summoned to court on penalty points offences that have avoided receiving points by agreeing to give a donation to charity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20333/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The court poor box is a non-statutory system used mostly by the District Courts to impose a financial charge on a defendant to be used for a charitable purpose, usually instead of imposing a criminal conviction. Payments made to the court poor box are accounted for by the court office concerned and the accounting procedures are subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Generally, charities are the recipients of poor box contributions but the decision is solely at the discretion of the Judge who is independent in the matter of sentencing, as in other matters concerning the exercise of judicial functions, subject only to the Constitution and the law.

However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy I have had enquiries made and I am informed that the position is that where a person is convicted of an offence which incurs penalty points, the award of penalty points is automatic under the legislation and the court has no discretion in the matter. However, convictions are not incurred by persons who are required by the court to make a payment to the poor box.
The Deputy has referred to section 63 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 but an offence under that section does not attract penalty points. The table below shows the number of defendants who were before the court in 2012 and to date this year for offences that incur penalty points in which the outcome involved a payment to the poor box. These cases were either dismissed or struck out.

In 2005, the Law Reform Commission examined the matter in its report entitled The Court Poor Box: Probation of Offenders (LRC 75-2005). The Commission recognised both the negative and positive aspects of the court use of the poor box and accordingly recommended that the court poor box be replaced by a statutory reparation fund. A key element of the LRC recommendation was that the reparation fund should be ringfenced and used to assist programmes aimed at preventing offending behaviour and for the purpose of assisting victims of crime. The Commission was of the view that the reparation fund should remain linked to the criminal justice process and thus broadly adhere to the principles of restorative justice. I intend to bring forward legislation in due course to replace the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 with modern provisions dealing with community sanctions and the role of the Probation Service in the criminal justice system. In the context of that legislation, the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission in relation to the court poor box are being examined by my Department with a view to bringing forward proposals for a transparent statutory reparation scheme.