“If Everyone Had Just Followed The Manual…”

at

Inspectorate

From the Garda Inspectorate report:

Page 9

“There was a lack of management oversight in not implementing required monitoring mechanisms at the operational level, providing training for cancelling authorities and clear policy guidelines for its use. These problems were mentioned by several senior garda officers who lamented, “… if everyone had just followed the manual …we wouldn’t be dealing with this …”. The Inspectorate was told by senior garda staff, that but for the public scrutiny, the extent of the deficiencies within the fixed charge processing system would not have been detected”.

Page 21

“By way of example, the Inspectorate notes from the Assistant Commissioner and PSU [Garda Professional Standards Unit] reports and from focus group meetings that requests for cancellation of FCNs are accepted over the phone. This process is in breach of current policy, where all FCN cancellation requests must be in writing. However, the Inspectorate accepts that in some cases FCN cancellation requests are undertaken in good faith.”

Page 26

“Road traffic offenders who receive a FCN and who do not pay it are served with a summons to attend a local district court. Focus group and stakeholder meetings suggested that on conviction offenders were avoiding penalty points by intentionally not producing their driving licence in court. The court summons advises the offender to bring their driving licence and a copy of their licence to court. Where offenders do not bring their driving licence to court, there is no system to ensure penalty points are endorsed on the driving licence. This is a very serious issue. In a recent Parliamentary Question, the Minister for Justice and Equality published figures indicating production rates of driving licences in court for convicted offenders. In the period March 2012 to August 2013 a total of 16,493 offenders were convicted of penalty point offences across all district courts of which only 6,653 (40%) had their driving licence number recorded. The individual rates of recording of driving licence details across all district courts varied from a rate of 15% at Drogheda/Dundalk District Court to 60% recorded in the DMR region. A total of 9,840 (60%) convicted offenders avoided penalty points on their licence during this 18 month period and this deficiency in the system needs to be addressed.”

Page 32

“Currently there is no statutory provision that enables the use of discretion by the Garda Síochána in cancelling FCNs.”

Page 34

“As part of its fieldwork, the Inspectorate examined the FCN cancellation files from the nine districts inspected for August 2012 and January 2013, which resulted in the examination of 103 files from nine districts. The Inspectorate notes that in only one of the nine districts examined, was the cancellation policy implemented as required by the manual.”

Page 36

A total of fifty-five inspectors and superintendents were identified as breaching policy in cancelling fixed charge notices of varying degrees of seriousness. As a result of these breaches of policy, most were referred to their divisional officers for a “reminder” to comply with policy and three referred to Garda Internal Affairs for investigation.”

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