Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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587. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality further to her reply of 27 May 2015 to Parliamentary Question No. 103 of 25 March 2015, with the breakdown on cases before each District Court for road traffic offences where the outcome included donations to the court poor box, if she will clarify how many of these instances were for penalty point offences; the number of cases per District Court for road traffic offences with convictions for penalty point offences; the number of non-convictions due to payments to the court poor box in lieu of conviction and application of penalty points; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22426/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, 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. In February 2014, the Government approved the drafting of the Criminal Justice (Community Sanctions) Bill, which will 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. It is intended that the legislation will provide for a statutory Reparation Fund to replace the Court Poor Box, as recommended by the Law Reform Commission in its 2005 report The Court Poor Box: Probation of Offenders.

I and my Department are at present actively reviewing issues relating to the various aspects of enforcement of penalty points in the justice system generally and this process will be completed shortly. In order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had made enquiries about the number of defendants recorded on the Courts Service Criminal Case Tracking System (CCTS) who were before the court for offences under the Road Traffic Act in respect of the categories requested by the Deputy and the outcome of whose cases involved payments to the Court Poor Box. I am arranging for a table setting out this information to be provided to the Deputy as soon as it can be completed.