Bill will help close legal loophole
The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald T.D., today secured Government approval for the publication of the General Scheme of a new Summons Printing and Fixed Charge Notice Bill.
The Tánaiste said: “The proposed Bill under this Scheme will help to close a technical loophole that has emerged in relation to the unintended avoidance of fines and penalty points by some people believed to have committed offences under the Road Traffic Act.”
The proposed Scheme of the Bill is a collaboration between the Tánaiste and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross T.D., and their respective Departments.
It will tighten up the administrative procedures around the issue of fixed charge notices and summonses for the road traffic offences concerned. This, in turn, will enable the commencement of section 44 (‘the third payment option’) of the Road Traffic Act 2010 by Minister Ross and the effective application of any fines and penalty points concerned.
The Tánaiste continued: “The Scheme published today will provide essential technical and administrative measures to allow for the introduction of a ‘third payment option’, to address a situation whereby some persons responsible for road traffic offences may not incur fines or penalty points for technical reasons.
“It will essentially restore fairness to the system. Both myself and Minister Ross are determined that road traffic offenders, who might otherwise avoid fines and penalty points for actual offences committed, are held to account.”
“I also want to acknowledge the work of the former Minister, Paschal Donohoe, on this issue.”
The Bill proposed under the Government-approved Scheme will, in the form of a “third payment option” for offences, increase the application of fixed charge penalties and penalty points to road traffic offences actually detected each year while also keeping down the number of those cases that would otherwise take up valuable Court and Garda time.
ENDS
Note for Editors:
Current Loophole
At present, under the Road Traffic Act 2002, a person who does not pay a fixed charge notice, within the 56 days set down in law, is served with a summons. At that point the person has no further payment option and must attend court. However, persons regularly appear in court and state that they did not receive the original fixed charge notice, and many such cases are dismissed by the Courts. In these cases neither the fines nor the penalty points end up being applied. The Courts Service tentatively estimates that in the region of 7,500 cases are dismissed on these grounds in the courts annually.
What is the “third payment option”?
A fixed charge notice offence currently affords two payment options before a summons is issued requiring a person to attend court. That is to say, a first period of 28 days during which the person may pay the fixed amount, followed by a second consecutive period of 28 days, during which the person may pay the fixed amount plus 50%. The key objective now proposed under today’s Memorandum is to provide essential technical and administrative measures to enable the introduction of a “third payment option”, that is to say payment of the fixed amount plus 100%, while upholding any penalty points concerned without taking-up further Court or Garda time.
Proposed Solution
The proposed solution is to provide a member of the public with an alternative to attending court (the “third payment option”) which nevertheless results in the appropriate penalty points being attached to their licence and the relevant penalty being paid. This is being done as part of a two-pronged approach:-
(a) amendment, for technical reasons, of section 1 of the Courts (No. 3) Act 1986, which deals with the issue of summonses in relation to offences as a matter of administrative procedure.
(b) the commencement, once the proposed technical amendments set out in the Head of the attached Scheme have been made, of section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, so that the third payment option can be put into practical effect.