Only 7% who fail to pay fine face penalty

The vast bulk of offenders who refuse to pay court fines are getting away scot-free and the entire enforcement system is “increasingly futile”, court documents reveal.

Official figures show that only 10% of those who refuse to pay their fines show up at enforcement hearings and less than 7% receive any kind of sanction.

A top official in the Courts Service has told the Department of Justice that an “enormous” amount of time was taken up trying to enforce the system “for no benefit to anyone”.

Margaret O’Neill, of circuit and district court operations, said “very few” of the outstanding fines, which are imposed as a sanction for a criminal offence, were being paid.

She said that because the majority of people do not turn up in court for enforcement hearings, “no penalty at all” was being applied.

Ms O’Neill said the waste of court and judicial time and resources was “incalculable”. Figures show there is a backlog of almost 58,000 fines awaiting enforcement.

The damning indictment of the fines enforcement system emerged in documents released to the Irish Examiner by the Courts Service under the Freedom of Information Act.

Figures provided show:

• 34,767 enforcement notices involving 25,474 people have been issued in relation to the non-payment of fines since January 2016;
• 2,424 notices (1,500 people) — less than 7% of all cases — resulted in any kind of sanction, including imprisonment and community service order;
• 11,526 cases — 33% of all notices — were ‘struck out’ by the judge, including where no prosecutor appeared for the case;
• 10,835 cases (31%) ended in a bench warrant for the defendant, with gardaí telling the Courts Service that they were “not prepared” for the sheer volume of such warrants;
• 5,072 cases (15%) saw the enforcement notice withdrawn;

There were 3,005 cases (9%) where the hearing was adjourned, many because the offender failed to turn up.

In an email sent in June 2018 to the Department of Justice, principal officer Kevin Condon, Ms O’Neill said: “Overall, an enormous amount of time, both court and office, is being taken up on issuing, processing, and resulting these cases for no benefit to anyone.

“Very few of the outstanding fines are being paid and, because the majority of people are not turning up for the enforcement hearing, no penalty at all is being applied.

The whole process is increasingly futile and needs to be reviewed urgently.

Courts Service plans to cut the backlog of fines awaiting enforcement, from almost 57,000 at the end of 2017 to 38,000 by close of 2018, through special court sittings, ran aground due to a shortage of judges.

The figure stood at 57,850 at the start of this year.

Ms O’Neill said bench warrants were causing “major problems” and said gardaí in Galway were apparently refusing to execute any bench warrant which did not have a date of birth on it.

She said some gardaí were demanding out-of-hours courts to execute the enforcement of bench warrants, which she said was “complete nonsense”.

In a further email to Mr Condon last September, Ms O’Neill said “over 70%” of enforcement notices were accounted for by either a bench warrant or a strike- out.

“If we add in the ‘adjourned’ which have to come back before the courts to be finalised, most probably as bench warrants or strike-outs, the figure goes above 85%,” she said.

She said that attachment of earning orders, community service orders and recovery orders account “for less than 2%” of all enforcement notices and “just barely 1% of fined persons”.

She said: “The waste of court/judicial time and Courts Service time and resources is incalculable for a collection rate of barely 10%.”