New penalty point measures are set to give drivers who do not pay the fix-charge on time the option of paying a double fine to avoid large numbers of court appearances.
A memo is expected to be brought to Cabinet on Tuesday which will allow drivers summonsed for not paying a fine to avoid a court appearance, according to the Irish Examiner.
Under the current system, when a person is detected as having driven over the speed limit, a fixed charge notice is issued. If this is not paid within 28 days, the fine doubles, and after 56 days, a summons for court is issued, whereupon the fine is higher and the number of penalty points greater.
It is understood that Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Transport Shane Ross and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe have been working together on a new "third option" to deal with the thousands of drivers who avoid penalty points each year.
More than 37,000 people were before the courts for speeding offences between January 2013 and March 2015. Of those, 17,200 or 47 per cent, were convicted and almost 13,800 cases, more than a third, were struck out.
More than 2,500 cases were dismissed, 533 were dismissed under the Probation Act and almost 50 had no order made. A further 184 cases had the speeding taken into consideration with other offences, and more than 1,100 cases were withdrawn.
As fixed-term notices are sent by regular post and are not registered, many drivers continue to avoid prosecution by claiming in court that they never received the penalty points notice, according to the Irish Examiner.
The new third payment option would seek to rectify this avoidance by arriving in the post with the summons and giving motorists the option of either paying the increased fine or going to court.
Nearly 2,000 drivers were allowed to avoid convictions and the imposition of penalty points for speeding offences by making contributions to court poor boxes over a 27-month period, despite legislation banning the practice, figures earlier this year showed.
That figure includes 236 donations in the first three months of 2015, 619 in 2014 and 1,034 in 2013.
The Road Traffic Act 2010 prohibits the application of the poor box to offences that attract penalty points, including speeding, from June 1st, 2011.
