Judges need ‘firmer line’ on penalty points says top civil servant

Judges should not be allowing motorists to escape incurring penalty points by not bringing their licences to their court hearings to have the points applied, one of the State’s most senior civil servants has said.

Secretary general of the Department of Transport, Tom O'Mahony, accepted the practice was still happening but suggested to the Public Accounts Committee that members of the judiciary need to take a firmer line to end the abuse.

“Going to court for a fixed charge notice (penalty points) offence and failing to produce a licence is in itself an offence,” he said.

“The person should be convicted (of the offence they are in court for), but the details of not producing the licence should be passed on to the gardai so the person should be prosecuted again. And one way or the other... that would be a disincentive to do it.”

The Government moved to close the loophole two years ago when it introduced fines for those who did not bring their licences to court.

Mr O’Mahony accepted under questioning from PAC chairman John McGuinness, however, that the practice was ongoing.

The issue arises when a motorist is caught speeding or committing another offence that attracts penalty points.

They may pay the fine and accept the penalty points onto their licences or they may go to court and fight the sanction.

However, it emerged some years ago that if motorists who opted to go to court did not bring their drivers licences with them, the points could not be attached to the licence on the State’s national driver file.

There was no follow-up by the authorities to ensure the points were attached to the licences. When extra fines were introduced in May 2012 it was estimated that about 90,000 motorists had escaped incurring points in this way.

Updated figures were not available at today’s committee hearing.

It also emerged that the lack of IT infrastructure within the Garda and the Courts Service meant revenue-raising measures around the enforcement of road traffic legislation could not be implemented.

In 2010, legislative reforms were introduced to make it an offence, punishable by a fine of €5,000, for companies to fail to reveal the names of those driving company cars detected speeding.

The non cooperation of companies in that regard costs around €1.2 million per year in fines forgone.

However, under separate provisions as part of the 2010 changes, any driver caught speeding was to be given a third opportunity to pay a fine and escape a court appearance even after failing to avail of two opportunities to pay and being summoned to court as a result.

Mr O’Mahony said the “third payment” provision could not be implemented because the courts and Garda did not have the IT infrastructure needed to run such a system.

And because the company car provisions were part of that same reform package, they too had stalled. However, the departments of justice and transport were making funds available to rectify the situation.

Mr O’Mahony added that since the introduction of new legislation last summer to ensure motorists could not evade paying tax on their cars by claiming they were off the road covering periods demands for back taxes were made, increased revenues from vehicle taxation of about €50 million had been recorded.