Less than a third of fines issued by district courts last year have been paid

Cork District Court handed down fines with a value of €1.42m, with €453,000 of that total collected by the start of autumn. Picture: Larry Cummins 

Less than a third of the €20m handed down in fines in the district court last year has been collected from the people penalised.

More than €143,000 worth of fines have also had to be written off as “uncollectable”, according to the Courts Service.

A log of all fines issued in the district court shows 59,208 separate fines were issued last year, totalling €20.1m, or an average of about €340 each.

However, only €6.64m of that had been collected by the end of this summer, with €13.3m yet to be recovered.

The Courts Service said not all of that money was owed immediately, with some cases under appeal and in some cases, money due to be refunded following a successful appeal.

A smaller total of €143,570 has been deemed uncollectible, where the person involved is deceased or where fines enforcement took place.

In some other cases, fines are paid on a staged basis if an individual does not have the money to pay in full right away.

A detailed breakdown from the Courts Service shows €6.42m was levied last year in fines in the Dublin District Court.

Of this, just €1.29m has been paid, with a further €5.04m still listed as “recoverable” by court offices.

'Uncollectable'

In Dublin, about €90,000 — covering 366 separate fines — has been categorised as “uncollectable”.

Cork District Court handed down fines with a value of €1.42m, with €453,000 of that total collected by the start of autumn.

A further €962,000 remains uncollected, while a sum of about €10,000 is not going to be paid, according to records.

The fine total in Limerick District Court was about €972,000, of which €278,000 has already been recovered.

In some parts of the country, the proportion of fines already paid was well above 50%.

Clonakilty in Co Cork had fines levied of €187,000, with more than €107,000 recovered.