Ireland

More than €15m in unpaid court fines including just over €8m for motoring offences

Minister says review carried out to streamline system and prevent offenders ‘kicking the can down the road’

The number of people sent to prison for non-payment has dropped from 9,883 to 205 between 2015 and 2022

Marie O'Halloran
Thu Jun 27 2024 - 05:00

The latest Courts Service figures for unpaid court fines show that €15.2 million remains outstanding, including just over €8 million for motoring offences.

Minister of State for Justice James Browne said that more than 550,000 fixed charge notices (FCN) have been issued since 2019 for “non-intercept” speeding offences, including those captured by speed camera vans.

This represented a “very high level of public compliance. Approximately 80 per cent of FCNs were paid on time without recourse to the courts.”

The number of people sent to prison for non-payment has dropped from 9,883 to 205 between 2015 and 2022, in the wake of legislation to provide an alternative to short-term prison sentences in cases where fines were not paid.

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Mr Browne also said “the Courts Service has informed me that a total of 43,118 fines with a value of €15.2 million are currently due. I understand that 28,474 of these relate to road traffic offences, with a total value of just over €8 million.” But these could include fines still within the deadline for payment.

The issue was raised in the Dáil by Fianna Fáil TD Aindrias Moynihan who said that “even if a ticket is issued, the feeling is that the same person will stick it up to the judicial system afterwards and refuse to pay”.

He asked if there are attachments to people’s earnings, community service “or some clear effort to collect those funds”.

Mr Browne told him the fine collection system “has proven cumbersome to operate and a review has been undertaken by a high-level group”, chaired by the Department of Justice. Its recommendations are now being considered “with a view to bringing forward proposals to streamline the system”.

Susan Gray, chair of the road safety group Parc, said while the 80 per cent level of payment was good, “so many people have been caught, there should be far more off the road. We know that disqualified drivers are not surrendering their licences and off the road means nothing to them.”

She said offending drivers are “not worried about fines”, no matter what the increase is. “They’re worried about the penalty points and losing their licence. ”

A Courts Service spokesman said it sends an electronic record of convictions to the Driver and Vehicle Computer Services division of the Department of Transport and it is the responsibility of the department to apply any penalty points.

Marie O'Halloran

Marie O'Halloran

Marie O'Halloran is Parliamentary Correspondent of The Irish Times

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