Delays in introducing the new computer system for issuing penalty points are being blamed for a Dublin motorist incurring 12 points before she received her first notice.
The woman, who incurred the points from a single fixed camera over a one-month period, had just started a new job and had never used that stretch of road before.
She told The Irish Times that the camera, on the N4 opposite the Spa Hotel in Lucan, is just a short distance from the slip road where she joins the dual carriageway. She thought the speed limit was 60 m.p.h.
"It wasn't until I got a letter on June 21st about my first two points that I discovered it was a 50 m.p.h. zone. All the fines relate to the time between my first offence, May 17th, and the time I got that first letter.
"Two of the tickets are for doing 60 m.p.h., which I thought was the legal limit. The fastest I was caught doing was 65 m.p.h."
Fine Gael spokesperson on Transport, Mr Denis Naughton, said last night the case typifies where the system is breaking down. "There's a huge time delay in issuing points and it's impacting on enforcement of the system.
"The aim is supposedly to discourage motorists from speeding but the system doesn't work. It certainly has no impact on someone with six offences who doesn't know they have any.
"Even when points were introduced in October 2002 the computer system was not up and running, but the promise was that it would be in place by the middle of 2004. That's come and gone and all we have now is a pilot scheme."
A Garda spokesman said yesterday the computer scheme will finish trials in September when the technology will be "upgraded slightly" and the system will roll out across the State by the end of the year.
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said the full implementation of the scheme requires the enactment of the Road Traffic Bill, due before the Oireachtas this autumn. This will allow the Government to outsource the issuing of speeding tickets. "At present for fixed camera offences, a garda must collect the films from the cameras, go through them, and write out the tickets."
This information is then sent to a firm in Cork, contracted by the Department of Transport, which matches details of offences with individual driver files. The department says this takes one week.
When the information is matched, it is sent to the Department of the Environment in Shannon, where, within two days a letter of notification is issued to the driver.
The Government claims its new computerised system will dramatically speed up the processing of points, reduce the time it takes gardaí to process the points and allow non-gardaí to issue speeding tickets based on photographic evidence.
As for the motorist in question, she plans to appeal the last three notificiations she received.
"Two of them are for 60 m.p.h. and one is for 61 m.p.h. I'm happy to accept the first ticket but, if I'd known about that at the time, I wouldn't have incurred the other ones.
"The bottom line is that, if I'd got the first points in time, I'd now have only two points and not 12."
The Government has changed information about penalty points on its website www.oasis.gov.ie.
Up to yesterday it read: "If you have been caught speeding on police traffic camera, you will receive notice of your fine and penalty points within one week of the offence by post."
The reference to one week has now been removed.