Poor Kitty almost went to the place where the tax fraudsters should be

HAD St Francis of Assisi been engaged in animal welfare in this country, it’s more than likely he would have been done for it, despite his good intentions.

Whatever about the cost of the doggy in the window, an elderly widow has now realised that in the Ireland of 2004 the cost of looking after a dog you don’t even own can be five days in jail.

The entire country at this stage must be aware of how 77-year-old Kitty Moloney, from Garryowen in Limerick, took pity on a dead neighbour’s Alsatian.

It was a humane act which resulted in her almost hearing the clang of the gates of Limerick prison closing behind her.

In case you haven’t heard, then the facts are simple, just as the outcome is mind-bogglingly incredible.

Her neighbour died. Mrs Moloney fed the dog.

She was summonsed for not having a licence for the mutt and failing to control it, and earlier this year in Limerick district court she was convicted and fined €200, which she refused to pay.

Unbelievably, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the 77-year-old asthmatic widow for the non-payment of the fine, and this week she was about to be lodged in Limerick prison.

All the arrangements were made. The gardaí offered her a lift to jail but the gutsy lady insisted she would make her own way there.

Before it came to that unimaginable impasse, her horrified family found out what was about to happen to their mother and paid the fine.

She hadn’t told them until the last minute about the State’s plans to give her a break.

She explained: “This dog belonged to a neighbour of mine who has since died. I have even since found the licence he had for the dog. I didn’t have anything to do with this dog, but I got fined for not having a licence and for having no lead for the dog.”

Apart from feeding the dog, which has since been put down by the local dog pound, Mrs Moloney was not responsible for it.

Anyway, as it transpired, the dog was licensed all along.

It has often been asserted that the law is an ass, and this incident of the great-grandmother and the dog is proof that it deserves to be described as some class of an animal.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell, when asked if the threat of jail had been fair, expressed regret over the affair, and said: “I think that nobody in Ireland is threatened with jail, as we found out in recent weeks, unless a court sends them to prison. And there’s a system of justice there with appeals and balancing mechanisms in it.”

He added: “It was a point of principle rather than a point of injustice. I think that in the circumstances I’m very glad that commonsense prevailed.”

Commonsense most certainly did not prevail, no more than the minister answered the question he was asked.

Commonsense was an absent witness in this case, which was as devoid of it as the Dáil is routinely of TDs.

If there was even an element of that commodity in evidence, the case of the unfortunate woman would never have seen the inside of a court, never mind her being threatened with seeing the inside of a prison.

And, of course, the case of Mrs Moloney did involve a point of injustice. She didn’t own the dog and it was licensed, but she didn’t have possession of the piece of paper.

There was no reason why she should - after all, she didn’t own it.

From start to finish, from the instigation of the prosecution to her being convicted and subsequently faced with jail, this case makes a farce of the justice system in this country.

It makes people despair of a system that is perceived to be two-tiered, if not multi-tiered.

It confirms their belief that the law is a very uneven-handed instrument.

If Mrs Moloney had, in fact, owned the dog and did not had have a licence for it and was consequently fined and didn’t pay it, sending her to jail would have been outrageous.

To send a 77-year-old woman, with asthma, to jail for such a trivial offence is offensive to most peoples’ sense of natural justice.

The prisons would be full of delinquent dog-owners if that policy was to be pursued.

In the past 10 years only two people have been jailed for tax dodging, which is costing this country untold millions every year.

The total take from special investigations into tax evasion schemes is now €1.6 billion, up another €50 million in the last four months.

The cost of a dog licence is €12.70 per annum.

Apart from those two tax fraudsters who were sent to the slammer, nine others received suspended sentences and one got community service.

We all know that despite the best efforts of the Revenue Commissioners, there will always be those who seek to evade their tax obligations.

By contrast, it seems far easier to catch those defrauding the social welfare system.

There seems to be a greater urgency about rooting them out than there is at the upper end of the fraud market.

For the first six months of this year a total of 128 cases were forwarded to the chief state solicitor’s office for the initiation of prosecution proceedings in the relevant quarter.

Some 53 cases were finalised in court - three were served with prison sentences, two received suspended sentences, 19 were fined and 13 received the benefit of the Probation Act.

The remaining penalties included cases that were bound to the peace or adjourned with liberty to re-enter.

From the tribunals, we know that corruption was a handy little earner for some politicians, developers and planners. Maybe it still is.

But nobody has gone to jail for it.

The banks were ripping off this country by systematically advising people to flout the tax laws, and showing them how to do it, but nobody went to jail.

If you are wealthy enough, you can pay a fine of €40,000 and be ordered to do 240 hours of community service upon conviction of downloading images of children engaged in sexual acts.

Kitty Moloney worked hard at her fruit and refreshments stall for many years. At this stage, when she should be enjoying life, she was threatened with jail, all because she took pity on a poor animal.

It is ludicrous to think that all the resources of the state were ranged against her - for the want of a licence she was not obliged to pay and which in any case had already been paid.

The resources of the state could be better employed. During the week there was a headline on a story in this newspaper which said “20,000 elderly bullied and abused.”

While it was in a totally different context, it would be true to say that Kitty Moloney was mentally abused by the apparatus of this state when she was threatened with jail.

A prison sentence, like a puppy, is not just for Christmas, and is something which will dog you, more than likely, for the rest of your life.

The law is not an ass. It’s a mutt.