Almost nobody will be imprisoned for failing to pay fines or civil debt under new legislation that is to be signed into law shortly, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said today.
Mr Ahern said people would have plenty of opportunity to pay such charges and the Probation Service had, as an alternative to sending people to prison for lesser offences, agreed to increase the number of community service orders from 1,600 to 6,000 per year.
He said following the enactment of the Fines Bill 2009 “there will be virtually nobody imprisoned for the non payment of fines or no payment of civil debt”. The legislation is expected to be signed by President Mary McAleese next week.
“We will have a more humane system in relation to the collection of fines and civil debt. . . . Obviously if people do go to prison, it will be because they have the money and they refused to pay,” Mr Ahern said.
Speaking to the media at the launch of a White Paper on criminal sanctions in Dublin today, Mr Ahern said the Government, in an attempt to reduce prison overcrowding, intended to look at other areas in the justice system where community service orders could be used as an alternative to prison sentences.
“We’re looking at other areas, given we have a problem in our prisons with overcrowding, so that only those real hardened criminals are going to prison and that we use every other opportunity to keep ordinary people who don’t commit crime on a regular basis out of prison through community service orders.”
The Fines Bill provides alternatives to imprisonment for fine defaulters and will allow the courts service to “name and shame” defaulters on a regular basis.
Moreover, new procedures will now mean that “when a court imposes a fine for a criminal offence it will also appoint a receiver to recover the fine or to seize and sell property from the offender to the value of the fine”, Mr Ahern said.
During the report stages of the Bill, Mr Ahern said “a total of 75 per cent of the fines in the District Court are for road traffic offences, so if the person who has offended owns a car then that could be taken in lieu of the fine”.
Previously for traffic offences a defendant could receive a fine of up to €1,000 and seven days’ imprisonment in default “but this will now be a €1,000 fine and a recovery order”.
