Report highlights success of scheme to dispose of road traffic cases outside court

The third payment option was introduced in June 2017 under section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 and has so far, according to the progress report, resulted in over 6,700 cases not proceeding to court.

Until June 2017, a person served with an FCN had to either pay the full amount within 28 days, or the full amount plus 50 per cent in the 28 days following that, and anyone who did not pay the appropriate amount within 56 days was summoned to court.

The third payment option allows for a person served with a summons to pay a fixed charge 100 per cent greater than the original fixed charge up to a week before the court hearing in order to discontinue proceedings and avoid attending court.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan and Transport Minister Shane Ross welcomed the Criminal Justice (Fixed Charge Processing System) Working Group’s 2017 progress report.

Preliminary figures as at 13 July 2018 indicate that the payment rate for people issued with third payment option FCNs since late October 2017 stands at 35 per cent, resulting in 6,759 cases not proceeding to court and being disposed of by way of FCN.

Mr Flanagan said: “I welcome the introduction of the third payment option and acknowledge the significant amount of inter-agency work which went into ensuring it went live on 1 June 2017. While still in its early stages, the results so far are encouraging and I hope that it will have a significant impact on disposing of such matters outside of the Court system into the future.”

Mr Ross added: “I very much welcome the reduction in road traffic cases coming before the Courts as a result of the introduction of the third payment option in June 2017. Apart from the legislative provisions, the project required the delivery of a complex technical solution entailing the interaction of two totally different systems – An Garda Síochána’s Fixed Charge Notice System and the Courts Service’s summonses issuing system.

“To facilitate implementation my Department provided 70 per cent of the funding for this technical solution, and I would like to congratulate the inter-agency group which oversaw both the technical solution and legislative changes required. This will mean the courts will now have more available time to deal with other serious road traffic offences.”