Just 23% of drivers who dodge fines found guilty

Fewer than one in four of the drivers summonsed to court last year for failing to pay a fixed-fine penalty notice were convicted, figures from the Department of Justice show.

The figures, released in response to a parliamentary question by independent TD Tommy Broughan, show 47,967 defendants were summonsed to appear before the courts in 2013 for failure to pay the driving penalty within 56 days.

Of those defendants, just 11,055 were convicted. That’s a conviction ratio of just 23%.

Figures for this year show that so far, 14,666 defendants have been summonsed, of whom 3,326 have been convicted.

In the response to Mr Broughan, Justice Minister Alan Shatter said the figures do not include penalty point offences which require mandatory court appearances.

The Department of Justice said that for both years, information was not available as yet as to what had happened in all the cases where no conviction was secured.

However, it confirmed that the reasons would be similar to previous years.

Last month, it was revealed that between 2011 and 2012, the courts service was forced to strike out some 60,000 driving cases without the defendant even reaching the courtroom, because gardaí failed to serve the summons on the offender.

When a fine is not paid for 56 days, gardaí apply to the Courts Service for the issue of a summons and the courts set a date for the hearing. Gardaí must then serve notice of the summons on the defendant.

Mr Shatter has pointed out that if a summons is not served, the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case and “as a result of strike out/not served is recorded”.

In 2011, some 29,791 summonses went unserved and, as a result, the cases were struck out. In 2012, a further 29,261 were struck out for the same reason.

In a further 20,000 cases during those two years, the convictions were struck out when the case reached the court.

Mr Shatter has said a review of the summons- serving process was under way. He said under the action plan he published along with the Garda Inspectorate Report into the Fixed Charge Processing System, he set out how gardaí had already begun review of the summons-serving process.

“The outcome of this process, which is taking place in consultation with the courts service, will be examined by the recently established Criminal Justice (Fixed Charge Processing System) Working Group and will form part of the regular reports from that group to myself and the minister for transport,” he said.