The number of gardaí processing penalty point offences will be increased significantly to deal with the backlog of speeding offenders in Dublin, the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, was told last night.
The minister met two Assistant Garda Commissioners and senior officials from the Departments of Transport and Justice to discuss the recent Garda report on the penalty points system yesterday evening.
Assistant Commissioners, Garda Tony Hickey and Garda Joe Egan told Mr Brennan that capacity in the issuing of penalty point notices would be increased by 50 per cent to deal with the backlog of offenders, the majority of whom are in the Dublin area.
"The minister is completely satisfied the gardaí are totally committed to the penalty point system and will even redouble their reinforcements to it" a spokesman for the Department of Transport said.
"Séamus Brennan accepts that there will continue to be pressures and difficulties dealing with this, but there will be no relaxation of the penalty points system" he said.
When asked after the meeting if the gardaí had raised the issue of resourcing with the Minister, Assistant Commissioner Egan replied that it was "not always a case of extra resources, but a case of using the resources that you had".
Referring to the Garda report Assistant Commissioner Hickey regretted it had gone public and said it was ever only meant to be an internal report, admitting the language used in its content was "stark".
He said it was meant for internal circulation and was never intended to become a public document.
The computer system designed to process the penalty point system and offenders will not now be installed until "next year realistically" according to the Department for Transport spokesman.
"The Department of Justice and the gardaí have been asked by Séamus Brennan to come up with some imaginative ideas as to how the computerisation can be speeded up" he said.