Motorists caught speeding or not wearing a seat belt will from next April be able to pay their fines in their local post office following the recent signing of a deal between An Post and the Department of Justice.
The long-delayed agreement provides for the roll-out on a national basis of the Fixed-charge Processing System (FCPS) which will allow motorists pay fines and have their licence endorsed without going to a garda station.
It will see the FCPS system linked with other computer databases including the national driver and vehicle file and the courts service system.
A trial will be run in the Drogheda area from January to March next before the system is rolled out nationally. Potentially the system could handle all of the 61 offences under the Road Traffic Act 2002 which attract on-the-spot fines. An Post said it can cater for up to 1.5 million motoring fines per annum.
Under the deal, An Post will send notices of detection and fines to motorists who will then be able to pay the fine at their local post office. If the fine is not paid the courts system will be notified.
A spokeswoman for An Post said the process would be transparent and easy to use.
"People will be issued with receipts, the fines will be traceable and the network of post offices makes it easy for people to pay."
Assistant commissioner Eddie Rock, who is in charge of the Traffic Corps, said the transfer over to the FCPS for fining motorists for speeding or not wearing of a seat-belt would result in gardai spending less time in court.
He added he would be keen to see the system used for handling as many on-the-spot fines as possible to release gardai from administration.
The manual nature of issuing penalty points has led to thousands of motorists escaping prosecution when fixed charge notices were not issued within the six-month time limit.
A report to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee at the end of 2004 found that 7,650 drivers did not incur penalty points or fines because of the delays.
The full computerisation of penalty points is dependent on integrating the Garda Pulse computer system to the computer systems already linked under the FCPS.
Despite Government claims to have this in place by the end of this year, this is not now expected to be completed until next April at the earliest.
The Government promised in 1998 to extend the penalty points system to cover 69 offences by 2003, but only four have so far been introduced.
These were speeding, not wearing a seat-belt, careless driving and driving without insurance.
