A single mother of three young children described yesterday how three gardai arrived at her house and she was taken to Mountjoy Prison for non-payment of an old TV licence fine. Ms Anne Carlyle, who has a current TV licence, said the gardai arrived at her home at 8.30 a.m. on Monday, just as she was leaving to take the children to school. She said they were hiding in a neighbours garden.
Gardai were hiding in a neighbour's garden as she went out the door. Her children, Bianca (7), Imogen (4) and Paul (3), started running around "like headless chickens".
"I wanted to go back for my keys, the front door was wide open and there was nobody to mind the children. I said to them: `Please can I go back and write down the phone number to get my parents?' But the gardai said no," Ms Carlyle said yesterday. A neighbour looked after the children. "It was unbelievable and very upsetting. There should have been a woman garda there, as I was on my own with three children."
Ms Carlyle parted from her partner a while ago.
She said her two youngest children tried to climb into the patrol car with her and shouted for the gardai to let their mother go.
"I was very angry and even when I asked the gardai if I could wave to my children one of them said no, that it would be an education for them in future."
She was taken to Rathfarnham Garda station and she said they did not give her a chance to go into any detail. She told them she could not pay the fine immediately. She was then informed that she was being taken to prison. As there was no prison van available, she was taken to Tallaght garda station and waited there. When the van arrived she was the only one in it.
"Everyone could see me in the van as I was the only one in it, going through all the traffic. I was made an absolute show of." At Mountjoy Prison, a woman warder asked for all her details and told her to keep her mouth shut. She was then taken to a room where she sat on a bench. After a while, a prison officer told her she was leaving. "They brought me through two large doors and then another and then I was out but I didn't know where I was and I had to ask some workmen the way," she said.
She rang her sister and sat on a wall crying until she came to collect her. The ordeal had taken four hours.
"Even if they'd been more diplomatic I would have paid the fine in time. I have a licence dated from March 26th to next March. I never wanted any of this to happen. I just couldn't believe it."
A Department of Justice spokesman said that he could not comment on individual cases but the Minister was working on proposals to avoid prison sentences for non-payment of fines. These might take the form of an attachment of earnings procedure. Sending people to prison was not an ideal solution in the case of non-payment of fines.