TV licence jailings- Fee cannot be ignored

Last year, 242 people were jailed for failure to pay fines for not having a television licence. All but six of those people were quickly released, and the other six only spent overnight in jail before being released.

It should hardly be surprising that the number of people not paying the TV licence has increased dramatically in recent years. Violators can be fined up to €1,000, or sent to prison, but the fine becomes insignificant when 97.5% of the violators are promptly released and the other 2.5% only spend a night in jail.

The €1,000 fine was clearly introduced as a deterrent but is not being enforced, with the result that this law is being allowed to develop into an absurdity. The annual cost of a prison place is €65,404; jailing people for non-payment of relatively small fines makes little economic sense. But ignoring violations not only invites contempt for the law but is also a grave injustice to the law-abiding people who dutifully purchase one.