A legislative change to get rid of a loophole which allowed more than 80,000 drivers to escape penalty points is not working, according to claims made today.
The Irish Times reports that the reason why the legislation to have the loophole closed isn’t working is because the administrative work to make the change has not been completed – despite the fact that the change was signed into law five months ago.
The new law came into force in October and states that a person who is brought up before the courts for a road traffic offence must bring their driving licence and a photocopy of it so that penalty points can be applied to their licence if they are convicted.
According to figures released today, at least 85,000 Irish licence holders have escaped penalty points because they had not been legally required to bring their driving licence to court. Apparently less than 25 per cent of people called up on their driving offences actually bring their licence.
In a typical display of stupidity though, the change in law has not actually been written onto the summons sheet. So dozens of people are still showing up without their licences. And also, the Courts Service has yet to introduce the IT changes that will allow it to record licence numbers and whether or not a driving licence was produced in court.
A very agitated spokesman for the Department of Transport said that the legislation was in force and it was “now up to the Courts Service to do its bit.” Eh…we have a feeling that the Department of Transport will probably be waiting a very long time for the Courts Service to kick into action on this…
Only 1,368 penalty point records have been sent to the National Vehicle Driver File by the Irish Courts Service since the new law was introduced five months ago.
Susan Gray from Public Against Road Carnage (PARC) said it was unacceptable that some of the most dangerous drivers could completely avoid points by going to court and not producing their driving licences.
“More compliant drivers accepting their penalty points for lesser offence and thereby negating the need for a court appearance, have a greater likelihood of reaching the 12 points and losing their licence,” she said.
“This loophole was discovered and discussed by the authorities as far back as 2008 so the time for talking is over,” she added.
In response to a parliamentary question, Alan Shatter, the Minister for Justice, said that the Courts Service was “in the process of introducing new procedures which will enhance their ability to record not only the driving licence number but also to record…whether the licence is produced or not.”
The Courts Services have said that they’re currently working on the problem, although they were unable to say when this ‘work’ would be finished.
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