Drivers with 12 penalty points are continuing to drive because of a "staggering number" of loopholes in the system, Fine Gael has said.
The party's transport spokeswoman, Olivia Mitchell, said that some gardaí were so bewildered by the legislation governing penalty points that they did not know how to go about removing a licence from a driver who should be disqualified. "Many believe they do not even have a role in removing a licence," she said.
Fine Gael is to table amendments to the existing legislation this week to close the loopholes.
"If the gardaí, who are supposed to implement the law, are confused, then it is a bad law. This is the situation with only four penalty point offences in place. What a shambles it will be when another 31 penalty points are introduced on April 1st."
Gardaí who had contacted her believed that some drivers were "not even aware" that they had accumulated 12 penalty points. Other drivers had simply failed to hand over the licence when requested by their local authority. Consequently, they had an apparently "clean" licence when stopped by a garda.
"The problem is a complete lack of clarity in the penalty points system, the lack of a clear chain of command and the lack of a clear procedure for gardaí to follow. But the simple truth is that drivers who do not surrender their licence can carry on driving with impunity," she said.
Ms Mitchell said there were loopholes throughout the entire process. "Gardaí on the road have no way to check if a motorist has accumulated any penalty points. This information is kept by local authorities on the national driver file, but it is not available on the new hand-held computer system for mobile gardaí.
"More worrying is the fact that once new penalty points have been communicated to the national driver file, they are erased from Garda files."
Ms Mitchell pointed out that if a motorist collected 12 penalty points, the local authority was supposed to notify the driver. "There is doubt about the extent to which this is happening. But the real problem is: what happens if the driver fails to return this licence, when asked? While the Minister reports that 'where the licence is not surrendered there is provision for An Garda Síochána to be notified', many gardaí are in the dark about what to do next.
"When the local authority does contact the Garda to get a licence confiscated, gardaí believe there is no statutory penalty to prosecute a motorist if they refuse to hand it over. There is no indication of who the prosecuting authority should be, or what the penalty should be for failing to hand over a licence. The ambiguity is staggering."
