THE MINISTER for Justice has asked the Garda Commissioner to consider whether there may be a better way of maintaining statistics on outstanding warrants that have not been executed.
Alan Shatter told Labour TD Kevin Humphreys he had asked the commissioner to report back in six months’ time on unexecuted warrants and any legislative or administrative action that might be needed to reduce them.
This followed the revelation in May last that the Garda Pulse computer system recorded 123,696 bench, penal and committal warrants as unexecuted.
The vast majority of these, 93 per cent, are penal warrants that relate to offences under Road Traffic Acts, public order and theft offences, where a fine has been imposed with a short period of imprisonment arising from failure to pay.
In his response to Mr Humphreys, Mr Shatter said it was unavoidable that at any given time there would be a significant number of warrants awaiting execution, as even in the most straightforward cases there must be some lapse of time between the issue of a warrant by the court and its execution by An Garda Síochána.
He pointed out that 46 per cent of warrants were executed within three months and 70 per cent within six. Eighty-seven per cent were executed within 12 months.
“Of its nature, the figure for outstanding warrants recorded by Pulse at any given time reflects an accumulation of old warrants which has arisen over the years,” he said.
“Apart from the huge volume of warrants which are issued, there can be a multiplicity of reasons why warrants can take time to execute and, in some cases, they can prove ultimately unenforceable. It is the case that many individuals can be subject to multiple warrants and a number of the subjects of the warrants are taking every step open to them to try to avoid arrest, through moving from address to address and so on.
“In fact, most of the warrants which are recorded as unexecuted are penal warrants, which relate to the payment of fines, with imprisonment arising as a consequence of failure to pay.”
He also said that, despite the constraints on Garda resources, the situation had not significantly deteriorated in recent years, as in May 2008 a similar number of warrants, 117,756, were recorded by Pulse as unexecuted.
Mr Humphreys said: “We must ensure that these unserved warrants that may be years old don’t clog up the system for gardaí tackling serious crime. Where possible other methods of restitution for minor offences should be applied and I am aware that the court must take into account ability to pay fines and consider other provisions such as community service.”
Mr Shatter told Mr Humphreys there was an inspector overseeing the work of executing warrants in each Garda district in Dublin and Garda division outside Dublin.
He also said there was a warrants working group in place that facilitated liaison between the various stakeholders, including the Courts Service and the Prison Service, and that worked to identify, address and prevent difficulties in the warrants process.