Motorist owed £4,615 in unpaid traffic fines

A motorist who consistently failed to pay traffic offence fines owed a total of £4,615. The driver was the biggest of 46 "persistent offenders" who together owed just under £58,000 over an average period of two to three years.

Of the 46, there were five cases where penalties of between £2,000 and £3,000 remained unpaid, totalling £12,530; some 24 cases where fines of between £1,000 and £2,000 were outstanding, and a further 16 cases where the unpaid fines were less than £1,000.

They were highlighted in a "value for money" report on the collection of traffic fines by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Mr John Purcell. He told the Dail Public Accounts Committee yesterday that it was "totally unacceptable" that the fines of persistent offenders were being written off. "We are sending out the wrong message," he told the committee. He also said the fines system was "flawed" and "in need of a good overhaul".

The secretary general of the Department of Justice, Mr Tim Dalton, said, however, that the main objective of the system was not to collect fines but to improve behaviour. He accepted that improvements were necessary but pointed out that a very efficient fines collection system could create inefficiencies in other parts of the criminal justice system.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Mr Joe Egan told the committee that "value for money" did not rely solely on collection of fines. Detecting the offences and bringing people to court acted as a deterrent. They did not have separate gardai to send to court, so there was a "fine balance" for the gardai in deploying resources.

Mr Purcell told the committee that there was almost no overall management or co-ordination of the fines system. He pointed out that, in 1998, 84 per cent of motorists paid their on-the-spot fines for speeding, while fixed penalties were paid by 61 per cent of owners of illegally-parked vehicles. However, only one-quarter of motorists fined for non-display of tax or insurance paid the penalty.