Written answers

Tuesday, 4 July 2017

Department of Justice and Equality

Fines Data

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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274. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will authorise an independent audit of the prison system relative to the methodology used to calculate fines and warrants for prisoners that served time in prison and were being released on payment of the fine imposed; the number of prisoners that were overcharged in the past due to the wrong calculation being made; the amount of overpayment; if the overpayments will be refunded; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30865/17]

Photo of Charles FlanaganCharles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) that in 2016, 8,439 persons were committed to prison arising from non-payment of fines. For operational and capacity reasons, each person committed to prison for non-payment of fines is considered for temporary release (TR) in line with the Criminal Justice Act 1960, as amended. Factors considered in relation to this TR include the nature of the crime giving rise to the committal, the person’s criminal history (if any) and the accommodation capacity of individual prisons on the day.

For approximately 30 years prior to its cessation in 2010, it was a practice that persons committed to prison for non-payment of a fine could be released early upon payment of a portion of that fine. Broadly speaking, the matter of who was recommended to the Minister for temporary release in these circumstances was subject to the discretion of the Governor concerned and on the particular circumstances of the case. There was no standard approach to the operation of the system. The legislative basis relied upon for this was the Criminal Justice Act 1951, which allowed the Minister to mitigate punitive elements of a sentence handed down by the Courts. In 2010, the Irish Prison Service ended the practice of the granting of TR based on the payment or part payment of a fine imposed by the Courts based solely on the individual discretion of the prison Governor concerned.

Since 2010, persons sentenced to prison for non-payment of fines have had a number of options open to them, viz: (i) pay the fine in full; (ii) serve the sentence in full; (iii) be granted release only when the fine has been paid in full, through a combination of part payment of the fine and serving of the sentence imposed or (iv) be granted TR for operational reasons as outlined earlier - for example accomodation capacity in the prison.

In relation to option (iii), the IPS has standardised the system whereby a prisoner can be released early through a combination of part serving of the sentence and payment of a portion of the fine. The system is now estate-wide, automated and based on a standardised sliding scale. For example, setting aside the issue of remission, in circumstances where two days into a four-day sentence a prisoner seeks to pay a fine, he will be advised that as 50% of the sentence has been served, only 50% of the fine remains to be paid. The 'sliding scale' methodology used to determine how much of a fine can be considered 'paid' when a portion of the sentence has been served operates uniformly throughout the entire prison system and dispenses with the element of individual governor discretion practised prior to 2010. All monies collected as a result of fines paid by prisoners is lodged into an Imprest Account, is properly accounted for and then transferred to the Courts Service. In 2016 the amount involved was €29,864.72.

Needless to say. the extent of the original fine imposed is entirely a matter for the Courts and cannot be altered by the IPS. The IPS informs me that it is not aware that any prisoner or ex-prisoner is seeking a refund on the basis that the amount they paid on the sliding scale system explained above exceeded the fine determined by a Court. The issue of refunds therefore does not arise.

The IPS advise that, regardless of the fact that no-one has sought a refund, it has no information itself that any prisoner was overcharged on the system described above. This could only be definitively established if the individual file of every prisoner ever committed to prison on a fine was manually checked to establish the amount of the fine imposed, the portion paid and the length of sentence served, in order to check whether any calculation error had ever occurred. For obvious reasons, this is impractical.

Due to the large volume of fines cases committed to prison on a yearly basis, any audit of the system would be a significant undertaking. With the lack of any specific evidence that persons were overcharged, I do not believe that an independent audit of the system is justified at this time.

Finally, I should mention that since the commencement of the Fines (Payment and Recovery) 2014 Act on 11 January 2016, where fines remain unpaid by the due date, the fined persons must be notified to return to court to enable the Judge to impose whatever sanction the court considers appropriate in default of payment. The options available to the Judge are as follows: attachment of earnings; recovery order; community service; or, if none of these options are appropriate, imprisonment.

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