Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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777. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 194 of 22 May 2013, if the report referred to in the reply is now to hand. [13654/14]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts, which includes the provision of information on the courts system, is the responsibility of the Courts Service. The Deputy will appreciate that the courts are, subject only to the Constitution and the law, independent in the exercise of their judicial functions and the conduct of any court case including the reasons for a decision is a matter for the presiding judge.

However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that when a driver fails to pay a fixed penalty notice within 56 days, the Gardaí apply to the Courts Service for the issue of a summons. The Courts Service fixes a date for the hearing of the case and the summons is issued to the Gardaí for service on the defendant who is required to appear on the date specified on the summons. Therefore, all summonses that are issued are listed for court. All of the persons summoned, however, may not appear before the court.

If a summons is not served then the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case and a result of strike out not served is recorded. You will appreciate that summonses may not have been served by An Garda Síochána for a number of different reasons. The Garda authorities may be unable to serve summonses in instances where they are unable to make contact with the individual concerned; there may be inaccurate or false name and address data relating to the person; the person may no longer be resident or known at the address; or the person may be residing outside this jurisdiction or indeed may have taken steps to avoid receipt of a summons.

As the Deputy will be aware, under the Action Plan which I published along with the Garda Inspectorate Report into the Fixed Charge Processing System, I set out how An Garda Síochána has already commenced a review of the summons serving process. The outcome of this process, which is taking place in consultation with the Courts Service, will be examined by the recently established Criminal Justice (Fixed Charge Processing System) Working Group and will form part of the regular reports from that Group to myself and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.

As already indicated to the Deputy in my reply to Parliamentary Questions numbers 462, 463 and 464 of 14 May 2013, the number of defendants summoned to court having failed to pay a fixed charge penalty point notice within 56 days of receipt of the notice in 2011 was 51,462 and in 2012 was 53,927. It should be noted that where an individual was summonsed in respect of more than one offence they are included once in those figures.

The table below shows outcomes in respect of all of the penalty point summonses issued following a failure to pay the fixed charge notice. The statistics contained in the table are based on the number of outcomes rather than the number of defendants. A defendant may incur a number of outcomes for different offences and the outcomes are counted separately. The number of outcomes, therefore, is greater than the number of defendants referred to above. Mandatory court appearances for other penalty point offences are not included.

* The category “other” includes offences that were taken into consideration with other offences, defendants dealt with under the Probation of Offenders Act, peace bonds, community service, etc.

Report on the cases in the District Court in 2012 for failure to pay a fixed penalty notice within 56 days

District No.	CSO	Dismiss	Dismiss on Probation	Disqualified	Fine	Imp/Imp Suspended	No Order	Other*	Peace Bond	Poor Box	Probation Order	Strike Out	Strike Out Not Served	Taken Into Consideration	Withdrawn	Total
DISTRICT NO. 1	1	27	1		107	1				45		88	380	3		653
DISTRICT NO. 2		5	20	9	213					85		247	1,266	11		1,856
DISTRICT NO. 3		25	12	4	56					4		62	203	3	110	479
DISTRICT NO. 4		4	2	1	458					10		568	1,422	7		2,472
DISTRICT NO. 5		25	6		136					96		310	829	10		1,412
DISTRICT NO. 6	1	23	12	1	260		1			18	2	236	1,066	10		1,630
DISTRICT NO. 7		2	2	1	292			1		2		194	471	3	28	996
DISTRICT NO. 8		2	3		80					2		152	540	18	5	802
DISTRICT NO. 9		1	88	6	282	1				55		268	1,073	14	6	1,794
DISTRICT NO. 10		3		4	174		5			11		268	1,128	10	1	1,604
DISTRICT NO. 12	2	59	8	5	261					13		521	751	10	20	1,650
DISTRICT NO. 13		111	24		618					44	1	582	2,242	75	422	4,119
DISTRICT NO. 15		9	6	11	224					27		215	654	20		1,166
DISTRICT NO. 16		33	5	9	473		3	18				475	1,153	7	5	2,181
DISTRICT NO. 17		26	4		119							257	697	13	75	1,191
DISTRICT NO. 18		24	90	4	216	2				50		58	472	16	80	1,012
DISTRICT NO. 19		17	24	15	828	1	5					1,122	1,239	42		3,293
DISTRICT NO. 20		10	1		459	1	1			93		319	1,095	12	4	1,995
DISTRICT NO. 21		7			115			1		54	1	116	610	9	35	948
DISTRICT NO. 22		63	38	2	343					15		373	1,066	33	1	1,934
DISTRICT NO. 23		32	1	36	326		2			2		284	596	5	7	1,291
DISTRICT NO. 24		11	2	8	285			6		11		347	586	22		1,278
DISTRICT NO. 25		39	182	8	583		1			2		254	1,478	19	38	2,604
DUBLIN METROPOLITAN DISTRICT	1	214	51	31	4,011	5	25	1	2	451	6	2,887	8,244	213	26	16,168
Grand Total	5	772	582	155	10,919	11	43	27	2	1,090	10	10,203	29,261	585	863	54,528

* Other refers to Endorsement & Unusual Results