More than a third of on-the-spot motoring fines in 1998 went unpaid, a Comptroller and Auditor General's report has found.
Only a quarter of on-the-spot fines for not displaying discs were paid and, of 400,000 notices for motoring offences that year, 64,000 were cancelled or lapsed at a cost of £1.6 million to the Exchequer.
Published yesterday, the report said: "Most of the offences which go unpunished do so because of weaknesses in the administration and management of fine cases by the Garda Siochana or the Courts Service, or because operational policies give a relatively low priority to fines casework."
The report said more than half of all fineable motoring offences, including those liable to on-the-spot fines and others such as drink and dangerous driving, went unpunished either by fines or other penalties.
This was based on figures for Dublin which indicated that fixed fines were paid in 37 per cent of detected motoring offences in 1998, and in a further 6 per cent of cases a fine or another penalty such as imprisonment was handed down in court.
Compliance in the payment of on-the-spot fines was highest for speeding (84 per cent of fixed penalties paid) in 1998, followed by parking offences (61 per cent) and disc display offences (26 per cent).
A total of 30,000 fine notices were cancelled in 1998 on the direction of a Garda superintendent. Some 15 per cent of disc offences were cancelled, compared to just 2 per cent of speeding fine notices.
In more than a third of cancelled fines, no reason for doing so was recorded. A further 34,000 fine notices lapsed.
Among the reasons cited were difficulties in identifying the names and addresses of vehicle owners, late delivery of fine notices and other administrative failures.
The report warned: "Planned changes in the on-the-spot fines system, including the more widespread use of speed detection cameras and the introduction of a driver penalty points system, will put increasing pressure on Garda systems. Unless the way in which these changes are implemented is properly planned and managed, the system is likely to become increasingly inefficient."
The full text of the CAG's report is on the Irish Times website at www.ireland.com
