Minister for Justice Michael McDowell yesterday insisted that no legislative change was necessary after a district court judge struck out 17 speeding charges because gardaí were unable to produce details of when documents were issued to motorists.
Mr McDowell told Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny in the Dáil that he believed a change in procedure was all that was required to deal with the situation that arose on Wednesday in Dungarvan District Court when 17 motorists had speeding charges struck out.
Judge Terence Finn struck out a total of 17 speeding and one seatbelt offence after discovering that gardaí were unable to tell him when fixed penalty notices were issued to the various defendants in relation to the offences.
Fixed penalty notices are issued by the Fixed Penalty Office in Dublin after it receives information from gardaí who feed in details of speeding offences into a computer at their local Garda station from speed- detection equipment used to catch speeding motorists.
A fixed penalty notice is then sent to a motorist outlining the speed they were recorded doing and the speed limit in force in that area.
It also advises of the various penalties they face and the consequences for them if they fail to pay a fine.
Failure to pay the fine can lead to the motorist being summonsed to court, but according to Dungarvan solicitor Paddy Gordon, several motorists at Dungarvan District Court on Wednesday never received fixed charged notices advising them of the offence and penalties.
In the first such case, Judge Finn asked prosecuting garda Bob Tritschler if he could say when the fixed charge notice was issued.
However, because gardaí do not receive copies of the notice, Garda Tritschler was unable to tell the court when the notice had been issued by the office in Dublin.
Yesterday Mr Gordon told The Irish Times he believed the difficulty surrounding the issuing of fixed charged notices could be resolved by the notices being issued using registered rather than ordinary post as is currently the case.
Contacted regarding the difficulty surrounding the issuing of the notices, a Garda Press Office spokesman said that the Garda authorities were currently examining the judgment in the Dungarvan cases in consultation with law officers.
