Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are related and may be taken together.
Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill, 1983: Committee and Final Stages.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 2, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following subsection:
"(2) Notwithstanding anything in the Road Traffic Acts in the case of the inadvertent non-insurance of a vehicle a person shall be liable on summary conviction to a minimum penalty of £100 and in the case of deliberate non-insurance to a minimum penalty of £350."
Before I deal with the amendment may I, with the permission of the Leas-Chathaoirleach, refer to comments made by the Minister in his reply on Second Stage? I was singled out as one of the contributors one of the black marks, in that debate on Second Stage. As spokesman on the Environment it is my duty here to hold a watching-brief for my party and ensure the effective passing of legislation. That is my role. I am delighted the Minister singled me out in that regard. As we have been very good friends since I arrived in this House I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that there was nothing personal in his contribution. It is now crystal clear that since the Minister thanked all other speakers for their contributions and left me out that I hit some very controversial points. I hope the Minister will consider accepting some of the amendments before him.
I should like to clear the record in connection with Senator FitzGerald's remarks. He seemed to be somewhat confused with regards to my contribution. I should like to quote from Volume 104 of the Official Report of Tuesday, 3 July last, at column 830:
...Senator O'Toole, said, if I understood him correctly. He was all but encouraging people to park illegally in the towns and cities of our country although they know parking restrictions are well and truly established as part of the law.
I did not say any such thing. I do not encourage people to park in unapproved locations.
My first amendment is in connection with inadvertent drivers. We are all human and from time to time we may run out of insurance cover through an oversight. There may be a delay or overlap in sending back a renewal premium. For that reason one may be caught in between these stages. That is the type of person who is caught badly under this Bill. He will now come under the same type of jurisdiction as the non-insured driver who avoids paying insurance deliberately. Our amendment is a fairly practical one that the Minister should definitely take heed of. I ask the Minister to consider it.
My second amendment states:
In page 3, subsection (4), between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:
"(3A) Notwithstanding anything in the Road Traffic Acts, in the case of the deliberate non-insurance of a vehicle a person shall on summary econviction be automatically disqualified from holding a driving licence for twelve months."
That amendment is different from one submitted in the other House. I do not hold any brief for deliberate non-insurance and that is the reason why there is such a high premium for the honest insurer who pays his permium annually. His premium is rising continually. The reason it is rising is that there are so many uninsured drivers. In the region of 140,000 or 150,000 uninsured people are driving around this State without cover. From time to time they are found in uninsured cars because they do not have a driving licence, sometimes deliberately and on other occasions for accommodation purposes. For such an offence the disqualification for 12 months is a sufficient penalty. On a drunken driving charge, which to my mind is more serious, the penalty is disqualification for 12 months in most cases. It can be appealed after six months and successfully in many cases, when one gets one's licence back. Disqualification for 12 months should be sufficient for that offence.
I should like to deal with this amendment. It should be borne in mind in relation to it that the inadvertent non-insurers fall into two classes. There are those who run into real difficulty in relation to, perhaps, a change of address, do not receive the reminder from the insurance company and do not carry on their insurance. I am quite certain that in court the maximum would not be applied in cases of that kind and the judge would be very lenient and sympathetic to those who would find themselves pleading a case of not having received a warning of the renewal of their insurance relating to the following year. What must be borne in mind over and above all of that is the protection of the third party, the protection of not just those driving but, equally, those pedestrians and others on our streets who are the recipients of very sizeable amounts of money from the Motor Insurers Bureau for hit-and-run accidents and other accidents where there is not the necessary cover. It would be very unfortunate if we reduced the cover that is given to people at large, the incentive that is given to them to insure in due time.
In the course of my contribution on Second Stage I raised the question of enforcement and I said that in many instances it was quite inadequate. The Minister in the course of his Second Stage speech indicated that he was opposed to mandatory minimum penalties because he would wish to see the courts' constitutional prerogative in administering justice preserved. However, this does not answer the fairly common practice in the District Court of the imposition of normal fines, or fines well below the maximum, for uninsured driving. The average fine imposed by the courts, for example, in the case of uninsured driving is £50, despite the fact that at present the maximum is £100. Indeed, in some cases the fines imposed are of the order of £20 or £25.
I take the point that the ability of the convicted person to pay should continue to be taken into account by district justices but surely the imposition of fines as low as £25, where a £100 maximum fine is available for uninsured driving, can only encourage disregard of the law. I would ask the Minister to examine closely the merits of minimum mandatory penalties in the case of uninsured driving.
I wish to add my support to this amendment. I would suggest to this Government or any Government that if we are really concerned with reducing insurance premiums we can do so in one quick swoop by the elimination of the jury system. However, we are not dealing with that issue in this Bill. Yet we have to look for positive ways of reducing motor premiums if we can do so. We can do so in some way with this amendment in the name of Senator O'Toole. What we are endeavouring to do makes sense, having regard to the fact that the present maximum fine is £100 and, as a Senator Hillery has said, often this is reduced in the District Court to £25, £35 or thereabouts. If there was a suitable minimum penalty as outlined by Senator O'Toole it would be very worth while and would help in the reduction of uninsured driving.
The uninsured driver today is hitting at the insurance companies in a very real way. He is clearly not paying them anything. They estimate a loss of £50 million in premiums, yet they are paying out every year through the Motor Insurers Bureau. In 1982 they paid out £3 million, in 1983 £5.6 million and the estimated liability for outstanding claims for 1983 is £42 million. They are not getting the premiums, yet they are having to pay out. Why have they to pay out? They have to pay out — and it is very important that the Minister be aware of this — under the operation of the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland. We have to try to find out how this came into operation. It came into operation in 1955 because the Government of the day asked the motor insurance companies to come together to try to do something about people who were victims of accidents that were not covered by insurance. The bureau was set up by the motor insurance industry in consultation with the Government in 1955 to provide a means whereby persons who sustained personal injuries in motor accidents would recover damages which had been awarded to them but which could not otherwise be recovered because the driver responsible was not insured. It is a black and white situation. At the request of the Government of the day, the motor insurance people were responsible in their attitude and came together to form this bureau. That formal agreement is with the Minister for the Environment. It was made of 30 December 1964.
The Motor Insurers Bureau interest themselves not alone in uninsured driving but find themselves paying ex gratia payments for hit-and-run cases. They do not have to do this but for the protection of the good name of the industry they have done so many times.
There is also the case of a person who had an insurance policy but because he had not read his insurance certificate in detail thought he was entitled to drive other cars and borrowed another car thinking he was insured. The situation may also arise in the case of someone who borrowed his neighbour's car thinking he was a named driver while in effect, this was not the case. Strictly speaking, the company do not have to deal with a claim arising from an accident but because they are the insurer concerned they will deal with that claim. Why is this happening? Why are they doing this? They are doing this in response to the request by the Department of the Environment in 1955 that they get involved and prepare a scheme to do so. In 1955 an uninsured driver was virtually unheard of, but the problem today has escalated to such a degree that the insurance companies have to cry halt.
The report of the inquiry into the cost and methods of providing motor insurance made the point exactly as outlined by Senator O'Toole's amendment. It would favour a minimum fine of £100 and, in the case of deliberate non-insurance, a minimum fine of £350 rather than the fine of £1,000 because, for whatever reason, the Judiciary are not applying the full penalties. It is far better to have this subsection inserted in fairness to the insurance companies who have set up this scheme and are now being "creased" left, right and centre because of their decent generosity. What would happen if they were to say to the Government that they were going to break up the Motor Insurers Bureau because they could not tolerate it any more? They are asking for some degree of consideration in this Bill.
In my opinion it is a perfectly fair and responsible amendment. It is the fairest and most responsible request the motor insurance industry ever presented to Government. They want to see the uninsured driver off the roads. They think this constitutes the best way of doing so rather than having maximum fines which will never be introduced. One might ask why will they never be introduced. The answer is that a person might plead that he tried to get insurance cover for £1,000 and could not get it. He could not do so because he did not have the money and the fine will be reduced from £1,000 to £100. That is no use. It is hopeless and will not do anything for the problem.
This amendment constitutes a practical suggestion. In 1955 the motor insurance industry were good enough to comply with the wishes of the Government of the day and continue to do so. If they pulled the plug now, who will pay? The Government will be forced to do so. The motor insurance industry is feeling the pinch and surely are entitled to some measure of protection. If they pull the plug now and said no more Motor Insurers Bureau — I am not saying they will do that — it would be left to the Government to take up the tab.
I appeal to the Minister to agree to this amendment. It is a perfectly straightforward legitimate aspiration. It is a real way of getting the £50 million not going into the insurance companies into their coffers, or some of it and, at the same time it will reduce the number of uninsured drivers on our roads.
In dealing with the penalties here we are dealing with one half of a whole. Punishment is one thing but I often wonder do we put the cart before the horse when it comes to insurance. I make the plea that not alone should we punish those who do not pay vehicle insurance but we should encourage those who do, particularly young drivers. For example, if a young driver is loaded with a cover of £300 at the start — if there is a minimum insurance fee of £300 — at the end of two years if he has not had an accident, he should be reimbursed that loading and in that way encouraged to act responsibility. As the position obtains he may as well go out and have an accident because he is being fleeced. We are doing nothing to encourage the careful driver. Insurance companies should study the feasibility of ensuring that those who have not had accidents are not treated as potential criminals before they start driving. That is what is wrong with our present law. They are regarded as criminals before they start because they cannot afford to pay for the insurance cover. If they were given any encouragement that by being careful they would recoup some of their expenditure in two years time, or at least that the loading would be cast aside in two years time, it would do a lot to eliminate some of the uninsured drivers on our roads.
In a sense I support what lies behind this amendment in that it is certainly desirable to try and take any steps we possibly can to stop uninsured driving. Senator Browne's suggestion of trying to provide some incentive to drivers to have an accident-free carrier, particularly for young drivers, is an important one.
The whole system of fines as it obtains may not be the right way of dealing with these offences. Even if we bring in a minimum fine of £100, or £350, it can still be worth a person's while not to insure himself. It is really very serious to have the large number of uninsured drivers that we have. I am not sure that I would entirely share Senator Fallon's extreme sympathy for insurance companies in contending that they are being bled to death by providing for uninsured drivers through the Motor Insurance Bureau. I would have thought that it is the insured drivers who are paying more on their premiums in order to keep the insurance companies' books going, in order to keep the Motor Insurers Bureau going. I feel the insured driver is more to be sympathised with than are the insurance companies.
However, I should like the Minister to consider that in other countries, particularly the Scandinavian ones, systems of weekend open prisons, and weekend community service orders have been used to cover a period when driving offences occur, whether they be cases of drunken driving or uninsured driving. In my opinion both drunken driving and uninsured driving are very serious offences. While one does not want to put a person in jail to the point that it would destroy his livelihood, his family, or whatever, it would not be a bad idea — particularly where people do not feel the pinch of fines very much, because they have plenty of money but they are still driving around uninsured — to bring in a system like this under which they would lose liberty, say, over weekends for a year, or something of that sort, rather than try to operate a system of fines and, if the fines are not paid, then putting them into prison. It would be worth while looking at some different way of approaching the matter.
I appreciate the sentiments expressed particularly in regard to the minimum penalty of £100 in the case of the summary conviction and for deliberate non-insurance, a minimum penalty of £350. I hold the strong view that tying the hands of the court like this is not the wisest method. If the Legislature feels that there should be a fine of £100 in one case and of £350 in another — though the maximum be £1,000 — that could be interpreted by the courts as appearing to be the norm.
If we want to deal with this matter in a serious fashion then we should leave it to the discretion of the courts. The point has been well made in the House that there are certain reservations held about the operations of courts, that judges do not tend to be sufficiently strict. I hope they observe and take note of what is said. I am concerned that if we do this the penalty of the £100 and £350 would become the norm. We are not increasing it to £1,000 as a window-dressing exercise. We want that £1,000 fine to operate.
Even on the question of a first offence carrying a fine of £100, it could be a minor offence on the part of an elderly person who, through oversight, forgot to insure. We are going to impose a £100 fine on such a person. One has to ask is that right, or should we leave it to the courts to decide what is right? I have enough faith in our courts to give them guidelines and at the end of the day let them decide what in their view is right and wrong.
For example, I should say that last year there were 91,147 non-insurance cases before our courts. If one were treating all of them on a minimum fine basis, one would be tying the hands of the courts considerably. Given that number there will always be a number in which fines will impose grave hardship on people who genuinely forgot, people who would not have the means or income to meet such fines. I must stress that it should be our courts that should decide these matters. Therefore, for the reasons I have stated, minimum and maximum penalties are not a good idea. We would be tying the hands of our courts. There can be extenuating circumstances at the low end as well and we would be giving a judge no option but to impose this proposed minimum fine. I do not think it is right and I would have to oppose it on that ground. Our judicial system works well. They will take note of what is said here and what was said in the other House. I believe that justice will be done in that way, but if we take this amendment on board I do not believe that justice will be done.
With regard to the automatic disqualification of people from holding driving licences for 12 months on summary conviction, again I would advise caution. We have that only in the case of drunken driving and dangerous driving where life has been lost, both very serious cases. In the case of a second offence we are increasing the automatic disqualification period from six to 12 months. Therefore, we recognise the need for change but I do not recognise that it is necessary on the first offence, given the way we operate for the other two serious offences. For that reason I reject the second amendment also. It is not that I do not understand the spirit of these amendments. I understand it, and I know that Senators all feel that it is a very serious offence to drive without insurance, and I recognise that by increasing the fine to £1,000. However, I do not believe that we should tie the fine down, and we should not exercise the automatic disqualification for 12 months on the first offence. Deliberate non-insurance and accidental non-insurance represent something which is difficult to prove in court. Normally if somebody is convicted a second time then we can take it that the offence is fairly deliberate and the person will be automatically disqualified for 12 months. On that basis I regret to say that I will not accept amendments Nos. 1 and 2.
I hope that the Minister is right in hoping that the members of the Judiciary will take note of what is being said here about the level of the penalties imposed. For my part I am rather doubtful. It is worth pointing out that widespread dissatisfaction exists among the public at the inadequacy of the fines imposed not alone in respect of traffic law but in respect of many other laws. With regard to second and subsequent offences of uninsured driving, a tougher line should be taken, and I said this on Second Stage. The Minister has said that there is a recognition that more severe action is necessary and, therefore, the disqualification period is extended. However, given the gravity of the problem, there is a compelling case to impose a penalty, by which I mean forfeiture of the vehicle for second and subsequent offences of uninsured driving. I would welcome the Minister's reaction to that suggestion, especially in the light of the very major problem of uninsured driving which everybody admits is there.
Again I take the point regarding second and subsequent offences and confiscation of the vehicle. We should consider that. The House is aware that we are dealing with penalties in this Bill but we are also reviewing the whole traffic code and traffic law. Therefore, in any changes we make we can examine that point. We will see if the changes will have any effect and if they have no effect then certainly we will consider the question of confiscation of the vehicle. I am slow to be as arbitrary as that, but we are making a change. We are moving the penalty up a grade, making it harder. If that does not operate satisfactorily then we will examine the question of heavier penalties and that would include reviewing the question of confiscation of vehicles.
It would appear that the Minister has come into this House today with his mind made up in connection with this Bill, especially as regard the amendments. I cannot accept what he has stated about the minimum and maximum penalties. He is saying to us here today that it is up to the Judiciary to impose whatever fine they consider suitable from £1 up to a maximum of £1,000 and he has defined categories of people whom he thinks it would be an injustice to fine £100 minimum. That immediately defeats the purpose of the Bill.
I said on a previous occasion things which perhaps the Minister did not like me to say and I will say them again now. It is not to solve the problem that this Bill is being brought in but to collect money. The Minister has said that a minimum fine for certain categories could be nil on the one hand or it could be £5 or £10, depending upon the type of people who will come before the Judiciary. That will not solve the problem of uninsured drivers in any way, and that is why we put this amendment down. I regret very much that the Minister is not accepting it and that his mind was made up completely on his way to the Seanad in connection with these amendments. The Minister's rejection of our amendments will do nothing to curb uninsured driving or inadvertent non-insurance of vehicles. We thought we were fair in mentioning £100. We thought that that was a sizeable amount and that the Minister would agree to it immediately if he is to solve the problem at all.
Senator O'Toole has indicated that we were not serious and that really the purpose of this Bill is to collect more money. If we were to take that view on board we would certainly accept these amendments for minimum penalties because that might be a means of collecting more money. However, we are not accepting these amendments. We believe in justice and in its operation and application. The courts are there to apply justice. We set the terms of fines and, as I said earlier, I have faith in the Judiciary. They know the problems and we are giving them discretion in this, but if we tie their hands their response would be, "This is what the legislators want and this is what we will give, the minimum fines, the £100 and £350" and they will operate on an on-going basis. That would have the effect of defeating the whole purpose of what I am about by increasing these fines from £100 to £1,000 and, on the question of insurance, in the second offence increasing the disqualification period from six months to 12 months. I do not think that what is requested by these amendments would be helpful or would do what we are setting out to do in this Bill which basically is to increase penalties to ensure that people feel the effects of breaking the law. Any attempt by me to impose the minimum penalties would be detrimental to that.
Amendment put and declared lost.
I move amendment No. 2:
In page 3, subsection (4), between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:
"(3A) Notwithstanding anything in the Road Traffic Acts, in the case of the deliberate non-insurance of a vehicle a person shall on summary conviction be automatically disqualified from holding a driving licence for twelve months."
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 are similar and may be taken together.
I move amendment No. 3.
In page 4, subsection (7), lines 15 and 16, to delete "to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years" and substitute "to imprisonment for a term not exceeding four years".
What was the maximum penalty under the old Act and what offences are covered by this subsection? I also want to know why the proposed term is five years instead of four.
The fine under the old Act was £50 and six months imprisonment. That was for the ordinary offence. Basically it is now £1,000 fine and 12 months imprisonment.
What offences are covered by this?
Taking a vehicle without the owner's consent.
Why five years instead of four? That is the kernel of the whole thing.
Because of the serious nature of the offence I believe it should be five years. In 1961, 30 motor vehicles were unlawfully taken and in 1983, 19,484 vehicles were taken. That gives you an indication of the seriousness of this problem. We have to deal with this in a serious way. There has been loss of life and serious accidents. People have been taking cars habitually and walking out of the courts free. While for the normal summary conviction we are talking about £1,000 or 12 months imprisonment or both, the Garda may refer a case to the Director of Public Prosecutions to see if the offence warrants a trial by judge and jury. If the Director of Public Prosecutions decides that the seriousness of the case warrants this measure, then the defendant will go before the judge and jury and will be subject — because of the seriousness of the offences — to the five years in jail. That is a reasonable approach given the carnage we have seen as a result of the unlawful taking of cars. I may have used the word ‘joyriding' but I withdraw that and call the offence vandalism of the worst type. It must be stopped. We are not seeking a five-year sentence for people who take a car without the owner's consent because we have the fine of £1,000 or 12 months imprisonment or both for that. But, if in the view of the Garda the situation is serious and warrants heavier penalties, they have the right to refer it to the DPP who will decide whether the defendant should be sent for trial by judge and jury. Thereafter it is up to the courts to determine what sentence is passed, with a maximum of five years.
This section has a very interesting and colourful history because it first surfaced not in a road traffic Bill but in the original draft of the Criminal Justice Bill. I quote from the Official Report of the Dáil of 2 November 1983, columns 1263 and 1264 when the Minister for Justice said that the taking of cars—
is now a major social problem that is causing deaths, serious injuries and damage to property. There are frequent reports of people being terrorised by high-powered cars being driven at reckless speeds through the streets, or police cars being rammed and so on. Cars are not just taken by youngsters ... This offence has got to be stamped out. Section 12 of the Bill proposes to make the offence indictable and to increase the penalties. On conviction on indictment the penalty will be a maximum of five years imprisonment and a fine of up to £2,000.
The Minister continued:
The fact that there is already a power of arrest without warrant for the offence and that it will henceforth carry a five-year sentence means that the Garda will be able to detain suspects under the powers given by section 3.
That was section 3 of the Criminal Justice Bill. The Minister is being, to say the least of it, coy by giving us all sorts of reasons why a five-year sentence is being introduced and leaving out the precise reason. Again, this particular clause surfaced when it was transferred to this Bill. In the Dáil debate on 20 June 1984 the Minister for the Environment said that because the unlawful taking of cars is now a more serious and pervasive problem than was the case when the 1961 Act was introduced, it was proposed to provide also for the option of trial by jury, conviction on indictment and so on. It escapes me why an offence becomes more serious because it becomes more frequent. For instance I do not think parking becomes more serious because it becomes more frequent. Both Deputy Molloy and Deputy Brady agreed. Let us get this offence into perspective. We are not talking about people who vandalise cars, because that is an offence. We are not talking about people who dangerously drive cars, because that is an offence. We are not talking about people who ram Garda cars, because that is an offence. I am surprised at the Minister in that I would have thought he would have had the original Act at his disposal. The offence is not just taking possession of, it is that "a person shall not use or take possession of a mechanically-propelled vehicle". The best advice I can get is that that incorporates somebody who is knowingly a passenger in a car which is unlawfully taken possession of. What we are saying is that somebody who is knowingly a passenger in a car which is taken possession of is, at least in theory, liable to a five-year sentence.
The Minister made some comment during the Seanad debate in reference to something I had said. Let me make it clear: I was not under an illusion that there was a mandatory five-year sentence. I fully appreciate what the section in this Bill means. The fact that I appreciate it is the reason I find it quite extraordinary. Let me be perfectly clear. What this proposes to do — as the Minister for Justice said but as the Minister for the Environment left out and as the junior Minister left out — is to bring the unlawful taking possession of or the using of a car within the ambit of those offences for which somebody can be arrested and questioned under the proposals contained in the Criminal Justice Bill. Let me read out what is in that Bill as it will be introduced here tomorrow:
The section applies to any offence for which a person of full age and capacity may...
and I am reading selectively from it
...for a term of five years or to an attempt to commit any such offence.
What the section proposes to do is to enable any member of the Garda to arrest, detain, and detain for questioning anybody who he believes or has reasonable cause to suspect, has either taken possession of or attempted to take possession of a mechanically propelled vehicle.
I do not know the logic behind this. I do not understand what is behind this and why there is such extraordinary panic about it. Of course, there is a problem about cars being stolen. Nobody is trying to deny that, but to change from a position where the maximum sentence was six months to a position where the maximum sentence is five years requires a little bit more elaboration than the Minister has given us. Let me remind the House again that recent figures — I quote from the Minister's Second Stage speech — show that 46 per cent of drivers killed in road accidents had a high blood alcohol level. In other words, the evidence is there that drunken driving is still a major problem and results in substantial numise bers of death. We do not know anything about the innocent victims of such drunken driving. Yet the maximum custodial sentence for that fundamental anti-social behaviour is six months. The maximum custodial sentence for stealing or taking possession of a car — not for doing anything else, not for crashing it, or driving fast, knocking anybody down with it, or being involved in an armed robbery — is five years. What that effectively will do is give carte blanche to a garda to arrest anybody he suspects of stealing a car.
Since the incidence of this particular problem is very high in our built-up urban areas and since the evidence from the Garda Commissioner's report is that one-third of serious offences can be attributed to people under the age of 17, this provision will apply in a special way to young people aged 17 and under. I do not think that anybody has thought out the consequences of this. As the Minister says, there were something like 19,000 vehicles taken without the owners' permission last year. Does that give us 19,000 suspects? Let me remind the House that in other areas where gardaí can arrest people without warrant on suspicion, for instance the Offences Against the State Act, there is about a nine to one ratio of people who are arrested and not prosecuted to those who are actually prosecuted for something.
We had 19,000 offences of taking cars. How many people will be arrested on suspicion because this proposal will enable people to be arrested on suspicion when or if — I hope it is an "if"— the Criminal Justice Bill becomes law. That is what I find objectionable about this; to pick out one offence out of all the list of offences under the Road Traffic Acts and say this is the one under which people will be able to be arrested without warrant. I know there is a provision under the drunken driving offences for people to be arrested. We can all understand why. Of all the other offences and crimes, we pick out this offence of unlawfully taking cars and we make it an indictable offence. The Minister for the Environment made it clear because it is worrying many people.
I do not believe that increasing penalties of itself makes the least difference to people. I do not think the people who stole the 19,000 cars last year would be particularly impressed by the fact that they can now be imprisoned for 12 months or for five years. The evidence of criminologists who studied this over and over again is overwhelming. Penalties for offences do not seem to act as a deterrent. This is true in the case of capital punishment and tragically it is true in Belfast because there have been a considerable number of young joyriders shot dead and it has not stopped the problem, or the possibility of being shot, as a Senator Rogers would tell us if she was here. If anything, it apparently has increased the tendency to do it.
In this proposal lies a representation of the values of our society which says that taking a car without permission is a more serious offence than taking a car out on the road when you are unfit to do so through the consumption of alcohol and are a threat to the rest of humanity. It says that the penalty for that is substantially higher than the penalty for driving while drunk or driving while uninsured, two things which endanger the health of the rest of society far more than the unlawful taking of a car. That is what is wrong and that is why I object so strongly to this proposal. It is a statement of our society's values which is extraordinarily perverse.
Somebody who was in the country at the weekend said when addressing politicians that there was a battle raging outside. There is a battle raging outside. It is a battle about whether we, as politicians, understand anything about what is happening out there. In the offence where our age group and our class are most liable to be culpable, that is the crime of driving while under the influence of alcohol, we have a reasonable but severe penalty. It is six months imprisonment and the deprivation of a driving licence. For a crime that is identifiably associated in large parts with younger people we produce this extraordinary draconian proposal of a five-year sentence. What it will actually produce is something equivalent to the British laws where a garda will effectively be able to stop and arrest any young person he sees acting suspiciously in or around a car. The provision in the Criminal Justice Bill means that either the offence or an attempt to commit the offence will enable a person to be arrested. That is why it is so important that such a wide-ranging and sweeping proposal as this extending as it does into the Criminal Justice Bill, should be taken out of the provisions of that Bill. It is not a sufficiently serious offence. As it stands, this amendment is probably the first major abuse of the Criminal Justice Bill. What will happen is that every time there is a furore about an offence we will produce an amendment with a minimum sentence of five years. The new offence can be investigated irrespective of the seriousness or otherwise of the offence. What it does is give a licence to the Garda to detain, which will be used against not just ten or 20 people but thousands of people.
The public pressure on the Garda to do something about stealing cars because of the symbolic value that cars have to those of us who are well off in society will be such that they will have to be seen to take action. The action that will be taken will be the effective sweeping detention of suspected car thieves which this section will make feasible. I object very strongly to this proposal. It effectively identifies the Oireachtas for what it is: a collection of more or less middle-aged people with the preoccupations of middle age, with their bits of property and their extensions of themselves which they polish up every Sunday when they cannot polish up anything else. It is objectionable in principle. It should not be there and it should not be used in order to satisfy an immediate and short-term worry of public opinion. That is why I put in a simple amendment to reduce the penalty to four years. I do not feel happy about four years but it keeps it out of the category of what are called serious offences. I will not accept that a youngster taking a car without the owner's permission is somehow guilty of a vastly more serious offence than anyone of the respectable members of society who drives home regularly and frequently under the influence of alcohol. The second is a far more serious offence and I fully support the amendment introduced by Senator O'Toole.
Senator Ryan stole my thunder. The Minister did not answer my two questions. To the question what offences are covered by this subsection, the Minister replied that with regard to a person taking a car, the word was changed from joyriding. That, of course, was covered adequately by Senator Ryan in his submissions. If I was asked to travel across this city this evening in any Senator's car to collect a message, if I were pulled up and asked the registration number of the car, I probably would not know because the car belongs to somebody else. Under this legislation, I could be taken in immediately on suspicion of having stolen the car. I can, first of all, be held for six hours and on the intervention of a chief superintendent, detained for a further six hours. If it goes over the overtime period of that investigator, I could be held for 20 hours. I am an innocent person on a message for a colleague, but under the Bill I would be a suspect. If approached by a garda, I may not give him sufficient information to satisfy him that the car has not been stolen and I could be taken into custody on several counts. The Minister only covered one of the counts. He gave the impression to the House and, I believe, misled the House.
Thousands of the cars stolen are stolen by juveniles. If they continue to be imprisoned for five years, no number of Loughan Houses or any other houses provided by the State will harbour the many people who will come under the Bill. They are very plentiful in the city of Dublin and in other cities. They will continue to come on stream, day in, day out Senator Ryan is correct in his objections to the penalty. Who knows the penalty for an offence before he commits the offence? People parking on a double yellow line do not know what they are going to be fined, prior to this Bill and will not know after it. Many Senators including myself do not know the penalty for minor or casual offences, to which I will be coming in another amendment.
But what the Minister evaded and on which he misled the House completely was that the only reason for the five-year imprisonment was to bring it under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Justice Bill, as rightly said by Senator Ryan. We want it to be four years imprisonment so that it will not come under that Bill. The Minister has not given sufficient information to us and we will be opposing this with all our might. We hope to get support. It is a dangerous thing to cause many more people to be brought into the net without having the prisons or juvenile homes to harbour them. Innocent people will be brought in off the street. People going about their business can now be arrested on suspicion and held for up to 20 hours under the Bill. That is why we are objecting to it.
Senator Ryan has said many of the things that I would wish to say. The amendments were put down to try to stop innocent people being brought in under the Criminal Justice Bill. Juveniles who are stealing cars from Prussia Street or any other place will continue to do so and no amount of penalties will deter them. More education and better upbringing in the home will do more than this Bill to curb that type of offence. We will be opposing this bitterly.
The Senators opposite are underrating the importance of this section because car stealing in itself is not simply, as Senator Ryan has been suggesting, the stealing of the comfortable man's and woman's car from the driveway outside their house. It is also the vehicle that is used so often in the course of robberies, kidnapping offences, or a wide range of criminal offences that are all too well known to every Member of this House. Only a matter of a month ago, I was speaking to a detective-sergeant in Kevin Street Garda station who told me from his recent experience that during the Saturday night period for which he would be on duty, he would come upon six to eight cars that he knew were stolen and were used in robberies or some other heinous activity, including perhaps assaults on people in their homes in the middle of the night by those who stole the cars. These vehicles are being used to get to and get away fast from a scene of not just robbing a household but giving the individual living there the greatest degree of harassment possible.
The only way in which that detective-sergeant or anybody else can deal with it is to ask somebody suspected of being in a vehicle that is being stolen to present the insurance certificate at the Garda station within 10 days. As I understand it, the presentation of the insurance certificate is about the only way in which gardaí can operate at present. Car stealing has become a vast problem. It involves not only the 19,000 that the Minister has just spoken of but the consequent expensive claims for malicious damages on the local authorities — and many Members of the Seanad are or have been local authority members.
I spoke to the Donnybrook district superintendent, not in my public capacity but in connection with my car which was stolen four or five months ago and has not been seen since. He said 750 or 800 cars are stolen there annually, ranging now from two to three per day. This is having very unfortunate effects of huge financial consequence to many who are depending on their cars for work and for their daily lives. In a period when people find it difficult to replace their cars, one can give too scant importance to the motor vehicle in conducting business, getting children to school and so on. The particular time of the day or night of the stealing will dictate whether that car is being delivered over the Border into Northern Ireland or taken on a ferry across the Irish Sea. Car stealing is a very large bonanza to people who are obviously dealing with the stealing of cars in a business way and it has led to a very big racket to which this country has to respond and the Seanad is right to do so.
We are obviously talking here about an indictable offence which should only be involved as the Minister has stressed, in rare circumstances when the Garda Síochána believe that there is a situation which has to be dealt with severely.
I should like to support the amendments proposed by Senator O'Toole and Senator Ryan. Their effect would be identical and would reduce the maximum penalty in subsection (b) to four years. There is not very much I can add to what Senator Ryan and Senator O'Toole have said with the utmost eloquence. In reply to what Senator FitzGerald has just said, neither amendment is trivialising this offence or suggesting that it should not be penalised. They would still allow a sentence of four years which is a considerable sentence. Either amendment would make a very considerable difference in that it would bring the offence out of the Criminal Justice Bill, which Senator O'Toole, Senator Ryan and I are particularly concerned about.
I am not standing over the right of people to steal cars. Like Senator FitzGerald I had my own car stolen and it was involved in one of these cross-Border rackets he referred to, of large numbers of cars being stolen and taken across the Border. On the other hand, those are separate offences. They all carry penalties. If we want to deal with the use of stolen cars for committing offences, or the use of stolen cars in various other ways, or dangerous driving in stolen cars, we can deal with them under those particular offences. This is not the offence of running a cross-Border racket. It is not the offence of dangerous driving. It is not the offence of using a car in the commission of a robbery. It is simply the offence of taking a car. Therefore, it is misleading and confusing to try to mix up the two things. If there has been culpability of another sort, it is up to us to bring charges and to adjust penalties for those offences, and not to attach the whole thing to the offence of taking a car.
I should like to underline what Senator Ryan said about the contrast between this and the penalties for drunken driving which, after all, is also an extremely frequent offence and one which is very serious and can lead to loss of life, as can the dangerous driving of a stolen car. To change the maximum penalty to up to five years in contrast to six months for drunken driving seems to me to be adopting a wrong set of priorities. Another thing that worried me about bringing it into the ambit of the Criminal Justice Bill is the business of being able to arrest without warrant where any kind of suspicion arises. Senator O'Toole has dealt with this to some extent, but there is one aspect I should like to remark on.
Many young people who never commit offences and who are perfectly law-abiding citizens are developing a very poor attitude towards the Garda Síochána, partly because they are stopped and questioned quite often when they are going about their legitimate business. If we bring in this sort of penalty for an offence which undoubtedly is committed very much by young people and allow this kind of treatment of suspects, we will build up more and more resentment between the young population and the police force. This is a very bad situation.
Our obeying of the law is not dependent only on what offences are brought in by statute or under the common law. Nor is it only because of the penalties we impose. It is also because of the attitude of the community to law breaking, to keeping the law and to the functions of the police. If young people see the police as their natural enemies, even when they are not committing any offences, and when they are perfectly law-abiding people, this is a very dangerous move to make. In my experience that is growing among people in their late teens, early twenties and so on. They never commit offences and they are perfectly normal citizens but they are beginning to feel the police are their natural enemies. This section which brings in all the powers of the Criminal Justice Bill for this type of offence will aggravate this situation.
I do not think taking a car is necessarily a trivial offence. The amendments which I am supporting still leave a sentence of four years which is no mean sentence. It takes the matter out of the Criminal Justice Bill and that is something we should do.
One of the things which is contributing to the growing problem of joyriding and car stealing is the poor quality of the locking systems with which most cars, even very expensive cars, are fitted. On Second Stage the Minister said he proposes to make regulations requiring the fitting of laminated windscreens to all new motor vehicles registered on or after 1 July 1985. I would like to ask the Minister if he is considering making regulations requiring the fitting of more effective locking systems or anti-theft devices in all cars at some future date. Even the most expensive cars are fitted with locking systems which would appear to present very little difficulty to even the most amateur car thief. If more complicated locking systems were provided, they could alleviate the problem of the taking of cars.
I should like to answer some of the points raised. Senator Ryan indicated that this aspect of the Bill was singled out, that is the taking of cars, and made an indictable offence under the Criminal Justice Bill. Dangerous driving, which is at present the only indictable offence, also carries a five year sentence. There is a certain degree of consistency in making this an indictable offence. It also comes under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Bill. It is not correct to say this is singled out.
It is important to realise what we are talking about here. We are talking about serious crime. We all know that most serious crimes, armed robberies and subversive activities are committed in stolen vehicles. There is no question about that. When the Garda are satisfied that a serious crime is contemplated, or has taken place they have an obligation to use the powers given to them. For summary offences the penalty is 12 months in prison or £1,000, or both. That will be the norm. Nobody should be under any illusion about that. We all know serious crimes are taking place night after night. Stolen cars are used to commit these serious offences.
We are updating the law and making it more meaningful. The Garda can refer a case to the DPP and he will make a decision as to whether it should go to a judge and jury, or he may tell the Garda to deal with it themselves. The Garda will decide whether it is a summary case. When they have reason to believe that serious offences have been committed or are about to be committed, in my view they have an obligation and that is the underlying factor in this Bill. It is not, as some Senators have said, an attack on the younger generation. It is an attack on serious and violent crime which has been allowed to run riot and rampant over the past few years. It is time we dealt with serious crime in a firm and effective manner. Basically that is what we are talking about and what we are proposing under the criminal justice code and to say otherwise is denying the facts. What we are doing here is to get at the hardened criminals and subversives who are driving a coach and four through the legal system, who are walking into our courts daily and walking out, smiling and laughing at us. It is time this House and the other House took this matter by the scruff of the neck and dealt with in a positive way. That is why I would have to reject the amendment. We are not about to hound people. We are after people who are stealing cars and we are attempting to cut down this dreadful theft of 20,000 vehicles a year.
Leave it to the Judiciary.
We will leave it to Garda Síochána who can take a summary case or refer it to the DPP. It is only after they are satisfied that serious crimes have been committed that people will be dealt with in this manner. It is the only effective way we can do it. In my view to be pussyfooting, apologising and making life easier for these people casts a reflection on us all.
Whatever reflections I was casting the Minister has thrown a few around himself. I wish the Minister would explain if we are talking about armed robberies. I thought Committee Stage of a Bill was a very precise procedure in which we talked about precisely defined issues. The precisely defined issue we are talking about here is section 112 of the Road Traffic Act, 1961. It does not say anything more except:
A person shall not use to take possession of a mechanically propelled vehicle without the consent of the owner thereof or other lawful authority.
That is the offence for which we are proposing a maximum sentence of five years. I assume the Minister is right. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on procedure to say it is for the Garda and the DPP whether the matter be sent forward for trial by jury or be dealt with summarily. I assume that is the way it operates but that is not the entire implication of this Bill.
If it was simply a question of dealing with those who use stolen cars to pursue one or other crime. I do not think we would have much objection. Surely it is not outside the wit of the parliamentary draftsman to draft a clause in a Bill which says precisely that, that it shall be an offence punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in indictment for using a mechanically propelled vehicle for some purpose like robbery. To produce such a global proposal as this to deal with the admittedly serious problem of the use of cars for armed robbery or for serious offences is not in any way to develop a proportionate response. We could just as easily have said that using a car without insurance could involve a maximum sentence of five years because presumably all those who take cars for armed robbery and things like that are not insured either. We could go through a whole list of things but this one is picked out. The reason this one is picked out is because there is a public outcry about the alleged widespread stealing of cars.
Of course we are all concerned that cars should not be stolen. The Minister can produce all the smokescreen he wants about people walking free from the courts. The interesting point is that people keep saying this but nobody has produced any hard factual evidence to sustain that particular contention that people are walking free out of the courts because of inadequacies. If there are such cases we would be interested to hear of them and we would love to hear the Government's proposal to deal with them. What we hear are allegations and opinions of people who produce nothing to sustain them. The Minister produced a magnificent smokescreen of armed robbers and God knows what else terrorising the countryside. Of course that is a problem but that is not the problem we are talking about here. The problem we are talking about here is that any garda in the country will have the power under the Criminal Justice Bill where he suspects that a person driving a car or in a car is guilty of being unlawfully in possession of the car to detain that person for questioning for six hours and then with the support of his chief superintendent for another six hours. That is the issue here. It is not armed robbery, it is not terrorising old people, it is the fact that without any qualification anybody can be arrested if a garda believes that he has a reasonable suspicion that that person is in unlawful possession of a car. As any of us who have been stopped at a garda checkpoint knows, one of the garda's favourite questions is to ask what is the number of your car. Is it a reasonable suspicion if somebody does not know the number of the car?
I do not think the Minister is being fair or reasonable. He is not addressing the question that we are putting to him, he is addressing an entirely different one. What cars are used for is not the question. We are not talking about cars being stolen for material gain because that is a separate offence, as the Minister for Justice indicated to the Dáil last year. Taking a car to sell it is a separate offence as against taking a car without the owner's permission. There is no connection between the two and the other one is adequately dealt with in respect of penalties. The issue here is that every single person whom a garda suspects of being unlawfully in possession of a car may be arrested and detained for questioning, not because the garda suspect the person is going to do something else unlawful, not because he thinks he has done something else unlawful, not because he thinks the person has robbed a bank or a house, but just because he thinks he should not be in that car. That is the issue. I wish the Minister would address himself to it and explain why it is necessary to have a penalty here so that anybody who is suspected of unlawful possession and nothing else can be detained for questioning. Why is that necessary — not why is it necessary when something else happens but why is it necessary just for that issue because that is what is in the Bill the Minister has before him and nothing else?
I thought we were acting responsibly here this evening. I thought it was our duty to do so and that we were teasing out this matter as best we could. We have examined this matter in depth. We do not stand up here and make statements that we cannot stand over. I do not like the remark of the Minister that we are pussyfooting here for any particular reason. The crime he is trying to portray here, of armed robbery, of kidnapping and taking cars and ramming them against squad cars is punishable in its own way. There is legislation to deal with that. We are not asking for very much: we are only asking for a reduction of one year. As Senator McGuinness said, a four-year penalty is a fairly stiff penalty for anybody who takes a car to go joyriding or whatever a few miles down the street, abandons it and is caught for doing so. A four-year period in Loughan House or some other juvenile prison is a substantial time. We are approaching this very sensibly. The Minister seemed to be somewhat ruffled, which indicates that he is not happy with that section. We are only asking him to accept the amendment substituting four years for five years. That will satisfy this side of the House and will meet the requirements the Minister may have in mind. Innocent people going about their business should not be taken in for questioning and that is what is being proposed in this Bill. The Minister is bringing innocent people into the net and I cannot see why he will not accept our amendment.
When the Garda are satisfied that an offence has been committed and that somebody has stolen a vehicle, they have a right to arrest and detain that person for a period but they must be satisfied that an offence has been committed. I do not think that is being unreasonable. When they are satisfied that the car may have been used or was about to be used for more serious offences they should refer that to the DPP. If they were not satisfied, they would institute a summary case before the District Court and the 12 months suspension from driving or £1,000 fine or both are imposed. I do not think there is any great terror or problem here. I accept Senator O'Toole's point that he wants to take it out of the Criminal Justice Bill by lowering the sentence to four years but, given the experience over the last number of years and the serious escalation of crime, especially in relation to car stealing, it should remain. I am satisfied that the Garda will use discretion where they are satisfied that the car was taken for reasons other than for serious crime and that it would be dealt with in a summary way. If a passenger is in the car knowing that the car has been stolen or is in the process of being stolen, then he is also guilty by association as he is in other cases; there is no question about that.
I do not share the anxiety of Senators that this will cause tremendous hardship and will be seen as some penal and draconian way of getting at young people. We are trying to get at people who are engaged in serious crime and about to be engaged in serious crime. It is important that they are held and that when the Garda are satisfied and have evidence, that such an offence should be referred to the DPP I am satisfied that that is an appropriate way to deal with this aspect of the Bill and I do not see any reason for accepting the amendment. Given what has happened and what is happening on a day-to-day basis this is a reasonable approach to dealing with serious crime and it is only the question of serious crime that we are talking about and making this an indictable offence. As I indicated previously, dangerous driving is an indictable offence and it is covered under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Bill as well.
The Minister has been much more responsive on this occasion but it is not a question of the Garda having evidence that somebody has stolen a car. If they have evidence they can charge them. Under the combination of this section of the Road Traffic Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill a garda who with reasonable cause suspects a person of either committing the offence or attempting to commit the offence can then detain him and can then go and look for the evidence afterwards. That is what I am bothered about. It is not a question of the Garda having evidence; it is a question of the Garda having a reasonable suspicion. The second and related point is about taking possession of a car. If I, for instance, borrow my brother's car without his permission I am now technically under suspicion. The implications of taking possession of a mechanically propelled vehicle without the consent of the owner are far more widespread.
It is bad law to concentrate on the extreme manifestation of an offence and use that as rationalisation for dealing with the offence. There are a great number of possibilities and considerations for the taking of a vehicle, which range from the one the Minister has justifiably outlined about the use of cars for serious crime to kids who foolishly borrow a car or foolishly joyride in a car and do no more harm that that. The offence is so widespread and has such variations in gravity and seriousness — I repeat it is in many cases so predominantly an offence which is attributable to young people — that the consequence of this section, coupled with the Criminal Justice Bill, would be to create very serious tension between large sections of our young people and the Garda. If I were to be too emotive I could say we were building the fires of far more of the sort of thing we regrettably saw in Slane last Sunday. If we create this sort of widespread power for the Garda to detain and question people about what is in itself an offence of very varying gravity, I cannot accept it.
Mr. O'Toole
I do not think that the case of dangerous driving is completely opposite to the case which carries the same offence, because in the case of dangerous driving the occupants of the car are not taken in and are not questioned. Therefore, it is not fair to say that a case of dangerous driving is the equivalent of an indictable offence. The people in the car are not taken in for questioning as will be the case if this Bill is passed where all the occupants of the car are liable to be taken in for questioning and held for a period of 20 hours. I can see tractors all over the country being taken by farmers — because they know that the owner is away at the mart — and being used for chores on their own land. If they are accosted and approached on the way to their own farms they can be brought in technically under this Bill also. There are many such cases, and we are trying to avoid bringing this category of person under the Bill by asking for the four years. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider his decision in connection with the four years so as to avoid bringing such cases under the Criminal Justice Bill.
Senator O'Toole mentioned the other indictable offence, that of dangerous driving, and the question of arrest. The only person who would be committing the offence there would be the driver who would, and can, be brought in for questioning. If two, four or more cars are stolen, the drivers could be committing an offence. For that reason they are all guilty by association and can be brought in for questioning. I do not think there is a relationship there in that sense.
The Minister made the relationship. He quoted that as a specific case.
No. Senator Ryan indicated that this legislation was singled out under the traffic code and I indicated that dangerous driving was also an indictable offence under section 4, carrying a five-year sentence. All I said was that it was not singled out and for that reason I do not see any relationship at all. I think we are being consistent and the law too will be consistent. Only people who may be guilty of an offence will be questioned or arrested if the Garda are satisfied that an offence was committed. Senator Ryan may have misinterpreted what I said — that where the Garda have reason to believe that a car was stolen, they can arrest and detain. That is not being unreasonable. It is not a question of driving wedges between society and young people, or some sort of witch-hunt on young people.
It is already there.
That is not the spirit of the Bill. The stealing of cars is a serious offence. As I indicated earlier a number of persons have lost their lives as a result of dangerous driving by people who steal cars. They do not set out to cause such accidents but because of their inability to drive or because of their recklessness they cause loss of life. We should not take lightly the question of stealing a car and I do not think the House does, but there is a much broader area which we have to look at and that is what I am endeavouring to do.
This is not intended to be a draconian measure, or some sort of witch-hunt on young people: it is there to plug gaps in our laws that are being used and abused by people for devious and serious ends.
I understand why the amendments are put down and I understand these reasons, but I hope Senators will appreciate why I cannot accept them. I have strong views on this. We have considered these amendments and believe that in the interests of public safety and the community this is the best way forward.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 26; Níl, 13.
Tá
- Belton, Luke.
- Browne, John.
- Bulbulia, Katharine.
- Burke, Ulick.
- Connor, John.
- Conway, Timmy.
- Cregan, Denis (Dino).
- Daly, Jack.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Dooge, James C.I.
- Ferris, Michael.
- FitzGerald, Alexis J.G.
- Fleming, Brian.
- Hourigan, Richard V.
- Howard, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kelleher, Peter.
- Kennedy, Patrick.
- Lennon, Joseph.
- McAuliffe-Ennis, Helena.
- McDonald, Charlie.
- McGonagle, Stephen.
- Magner, Pat.
- O'Brien, Andy.
- O'Leary, Seán
- Quealy, Michael A.
Níl
- Cassidy, Donie.
- de Brún, Séamus.
- Fallon, Seán.
- Fitzsimons, Jack.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Honan, Tras.
- Kiely, Rory.
- Lynch, Michael.
- McGuinness,
- Catherine I.B.
- Mullooly, Brian.
- O'Toole, Martin J.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Ryan, William.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Belton and Magner; Níl, Senators W. Ryan and de Brún.
Question declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 4 not moved.
I move amendment No. 5:
In page 4, in the Table, to delete
"
|
20 |
55 (2) (b) |
A fine not exceeding £150. |
We think the increase in fines here from £50 to £150 is too severe for the type of trivial offences being provided for — the wearing of seat belts and parking offences of a minor nature. I should like to hear the Minister's view on the amendment.
The Senator knows I do not wish to be awkward, but I cannot accept the amendment. The offences relate to dangerous parking of vehicles and we are all aware of the very careless way in which many people park their cars on roads and at dangerous bends. This involves serious loss of life. A colleague of mine in this House was the victim of such careless parking when he ran into the back of a vehicle and suffered serious injury. The offenders are people who do not care, and to contemplate reducing the fines provided for in the Bill would be wrong. Senator Ryan indicated earlier that penalties did not make any difference, but when the penalties were increased for drunken driving in 1978 a substantial difference was noticeable. The penalties must bite, but many of the penalties now in existence have no relevance whatsoever — people just take the easy way out, take the chance and completely disregard other road users.
If people are not prepared to consider others we have to impose fines and introduce penalties to change their attitudes. Those responsible for companies must be held liable also. It is for that reason that I do not wish to accept the amendment. I agree with the penalties suggested. We should keep this area of legislation under review and if it is found that the penalties are not adequate we should introduce an amending Bill.
That is the type of reply I expected from the Minister. He quoted again the dangerous truck that was parked when his colleague, the late Mr. Gerry Sweetman, lost his life, and other similar cases in the same way that he quoted offences in relation to my other amendments. I agree with the Minister that parking a truck on a dangerous bend unattended and unlit could cause death and I would favour the heavy penalty for such an offence. However, I am concerned about the minor offences. He did not make allowances for the man who casually delivers or collects a message. I quoted such cases as an ambulance pick-up, delivery by Post Office vans, ESB trucks or vans. In their ordinary day-to-day chores under the Bill they will be liable to increased fines. If the Minister defined in the Bill the categories of people who would be exempt I would be satisfied. I put down the amendment in the hope that the Minister would accept that too many people were taken into this net and liable to increased penalties. This Bill will penalise many people and force them to park outside a town. If I am travelling to my home town of Louisburg I have to ask my son to drive me there because of the bad parking facilities. If I double park in this town I am liable under this Bill to increased penalties.
There are no facilities provided by the Department of the Environment for parking. Whatever the Minister may have said on Second Stage he must realise that people must get some type of parking area before he introduces this legislation. It was mentioned on Second Stage that the Minister was putting the cart before the horse and that is exactly what he is doing. He is introducing legislation to increase penalties without providing sufficient parking areas. That is the only objection we have to the Bill. We support the Minister in providing the maximum fine for dangerous parking, parking that may result in road accidents, and have done so in the past.
As Senator Brendan Ryan mentioned, those who drafted the Bill did not take into consideration the type of people that will now be liable. The garda who has completed four or five months training in Templemore will be deciding whether to charge a person or not. It will depend on the person one meets. The Bill should be defined more clearly. We should have maximum penalties for the people who are creating the hazards and exclude the people who park casually to hop into a shop or other location.
Will the Minister confirm that in relation to the increased fines, the courts have discretion as to the amount of the fines that will be imposed for parking offences? If there is discretion many of Senator O'Toole's fears are unnecessary. I expect there is discretion. One criticism I have with certain aspects of different Road Traffic Acts is that for some offences the district justice or the judge has no discretion but is obliged to impose a certain penalty. I would depend on the common sense of the justice hearing the case to decide on the degrees of danger or risk created by the unlighted dirty truck on a roadside at night or the farmer stopping in a gateway to drop in a bale of hay or even the person who is obliged to stop to change a wheel. There is a scale there. If the justice has discretion within that scale I would not worry about the fines being increased. I would like the Minister to confirm that there is discretion.
Yes, the justice has discretion. We are not imposing any minimum obligation on a justice. Senator O'Toole was concerned about casual parking. That is dealt with and one is still liable to a fine of £150. As the Senator is aware, that will be an on-the-spot fine. When the Bill is passed we will determine what the on-the-spot fines will be in relation to the various offences.
Section 3 deals specifically with dangerous parking. We must emphasise that. If people park in an area where they are not entitled to park they will be subject to an on-the-spot fine which will be determined later. Where we are satisfied that somebody is parking in a dangerous way that could cause a serious accident, then obviously that will not be subject to an on-the-spot fine but will be a matter for the court. The justice will exercise his discretion based on the presentation of the case. Casual parking will be dealt with by an on-the-spot fine.
I should like to question the procedural approach to the Bill. I understand we have passed section 4.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
We are on section 3.
I thought the Cathaoirleach before he left called section 4.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
No, we are dealing with amendment No. 5 to section 3.
That is all right.
Question, "That the figures and words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Section 3 agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."
Is it the intention of the Minister to provide weighbridges every five miles? This could not be done. We will be lucky if we have a weighbridge in every town or every county. There are only a couple of weighbridges in County Mayo at the moment and the same applies to every other county. The Minister should be more specific as to where he is going to provide weighbridges. Will there be checkpoints throughout the country at given places, whether it be across the Shannon, at the entry to Dublin port, at the entry to the Rosslare ferry service? He should tell us now before we begin to tease out this section. I spoke about the harassment of an articulated truck driver in trying to get a weighbridge when he is stopped by a garda. If he passes Mullingar with 50 or 60 tonnes, unloads 10 tonnes in Kinnegad and is stopped by a garda in Enfield he avoids the penalty. It depends on where the checkpoints will be.
The money being provided each year from the Department of the Environment for the upkeep of our roads is not being used satisfactorily. The amount now provided is less than was provided previously and the output is less still on maintenance. Is the Minister saying that these weighbridges will be located at the ports of Dublin, Rosslare, Cork or elsewhere and that all the roads throughout rural Ireland can be carrying overweighted articulated trucks? In fairness to the Seanad he must be more specific. The idea of providing a weighbridge within five miles of where the truck driver has been accosted by a garda does not seem practicable. I do not understand how it could be done but I would like to hear the Minister explain it.
There is a slight misunderstanding here. The Bill says that a truck driver cannot be obliged to go more than five miles to have a check done. In other words, if he is stopped by a garda at a particular point which is not within the five mile radius he is not obliged to go further to have a check carried out. We are in the process of providing four more weighbridges in the coming years within the areas of Limerick Corporation, Dublin County Council, Louth County Council and Wicklow County Council. That is only a start; there is an on-going programme.
Senator O'Toole talked about a driver being checked after he had unloaded. The whole purpose of the penalty is to discourage people from breaking the law. There is no question of harassment. We just want to ensure that the law is being enforced and that nobody is going to take advantage of carrying excess weights as against his competitor who is operating according to the law and is at an economic disadvantage. People in the haulage business will see the equity in what we are doing. We have relaxed the weights and, despite what the Senator said, we are spending £127 million this year on roads. That is a substantial sum of money and an investment that we have an obligation to protect. It would be remiss of my Department if we did not. I know from talking to hauliers that they themselves agree that people should not be allowed to overload while others are obeying the law. If this is allowed it will cause serious problems on the roads because nobody will then feel obliged to obey the law.
Weighbridges will be constructed in major traffic areas so that heavy vehicles can be monitored on an on-going basis. The monitoring will not cause any harassment. It will be done speedily and in the interests of all. I assure the House and the Senator that we are not in the business of making life miserable for people who want to run a business but we want to ensure that we have reasonable rules and regulations and that some people are not allowed to abuse them to the disadvantage to their competitors. This is a reasonable approach.
What criterion was used? The Minister has chosen Louth, Dublin and Wicklow, three adjacant counties. There is none in Connacht, none in Cork, none in Waterford, one in Limerick, Wicklow, Dublin and Louth. Could the Minister tell us what criterion was used in the selection of the locations for monitoring this heavy traffic? There is only one in most of Munster and there is none at all in Connacht. Did he say as was said before, "to hell or to Connacht"? There is nothing for Connacht again, not even a weighbridge.
I want to raise a matter directly related to this section. With regard to the location of these weighbridges, very little of Clare is within five miles of Limerick. The damage done to our county roads has been enormous in recent years. Admittedly some of it was done in the interests of a good cause, the development of the lower Shannon region. Massive loads of steel were carried on roads through south-west Clare. I do not know who is going to repair these roads or when they will be repaired but they have been simply split assunder. A lot of that traffic would come through Limerick and if there is a weighbridge there it would cover that.
We have another type of traffic originating in the county and it is to that problem that I would refer the Minister. Most hauliers within the county, particularly the county council, will exercise the greatest care with the weight of material that they will transport on their trucks but there are other operators who are emerging, for example from concrete plants with very heavy loads of readymix concrete. There are yet others emerging from quarries with twice the load a normal haulier would carry. They need only travel four or five miles on a country road to do it permanent and extensive damage. In each of those cases that material will have been weighed as it leaves the quarry. Can the Minister say if the certification of that weight is on the weight docket each lorry driver is supposed to carry? Is that sufficient for the implementation of what is proposed here?
As a member of a local authority I commend the Minister for endeavouring to tighten up the provisions of this section. I share Senator O'Toole's reservations which have now been further articulated by Senator Howard. If somebody is caught and is not within five miles of a weighbridge this law becomes inoperable. Obviously we cannot compel that driver of a truck — even if the garda or whoever stops him has reason to suspect that he is carrying more than the required weight — to drive more than five miles to have the load weighed. There is not a sufficiency of weighbridges throughout the country in order to make this law operable. Any Bill whose provisions are inoperable is a bad one. Whereas I realise the Minister is trying to lay down standards, unless we can follow them up and implement the provisions to ensure such standards we are wasting our time. I am thinking particularly of country areas — one can talk about one's county better than anywhere else — where there is tremendous activity on the agricultural and forestry scenes, neither within ten miles of a town. Because they are all country, minor, nondescript roads the local authority have to maintain them somehow out of a limited source of funds. They are all now being subjected to tremendous stress and strain. This section of the Bill tells us we can do something about it whereas we are unable to do so. We have allowed an "out" as a result of the Minister's commitment that he would not enforce this law if there was not a weighbridge sited within five miles of where a person is stopped. It is inoperable and from my knowledge it would be totally inoperable.
With regard to the question of the five-mile limit, this is the law. We may examine that to ascertain if we should extend it. But I do not think the five-mile limit is the real matter at issue. Senator O'Toole asked about Dublin County Council, Louth County Council, Wicklow County Council. Why? I do not have specific reasons. But I can say that in regard to Dublin County Council a lot of very heavy traffic comes through Dublin port. In regard to Louth County Council, a large amount of traffic flows from the North of Ireland there, so I believe it is a reasonable place to site one. In regard to Wicklow County Council there is a fair amount of traffic emanting from Rosslare, throughput, roll-on traffic.
When you are making decisions like this, on an ongoing basis, as to where to site weighbridges you have to make judgments. They may not always be the best, depending on how one views it. But I am satisfied that where they are to be sited makes reasonable sense. We have an ongoing programme of providing weighbridges. This will not in any way inhibit what we are doing. Once we are siting weighbridges we are endeavouring further to enforce the law. I do not think the law we are creating is a bad law. We may not have a sufficiency of weighbridges or mechanisms for testing but that should not prevent us from making a start. There are 106 appointed weighbridges at various locations throughout the country, of which 43 are capable of weighing the largest combination of vehicles. So we are not talking about four new weighbridges only. We are also talking about existing ones. The four new weighbridges form part of an ongoing programme. A dynamic axle weigher was developed by local authorities a few years ago. Cork had one. I know its use was challenged in the High Court. Now it can be used only for axle weight determinations. Its use is limited. Nonetheless it has a role to play.
It is important that we have this ongoing programme. On the question of a five-mile limit, I should say it could be ten miles and still it might not be the best or ideal mileage — but we can always look at that. It is important that we site them in areas which carry heavy traffic. That will be the criterion for the installation of any kind of weighing machines. That will be the policy. Limerick Corporation have one such machine in use. Senator Howard mentioned the Clare area. I am sure a lot of the traffic coming into Clare would come via Limerick. I am not saying all of it does but once it is within a five-mile radius of Limerick it can be checked.
Therefore, we are making a positive and determined start on this. It is important that we carry it out to the letter of the law as far as we can, given the equipment we have and where it is sited. If we do not do that our roads will deteriorate before our eyes. We have this impelling obligation to implement this ongoing programme. I am not satisfied that we have sufficient weighbridges but this year we have gone for four. With such an ongoing programme the whole matter will be resolved fairly quickly. I depend on the faith of good contractors who obey the law, who do see their responsibilities in obeying the law. They form the great majority. They are the people we respect. These provisions are geared only at the minority, people who will insist on doing what is wrong. The great majority of the people using our roads are responsible and want to comply with our laws. We are installing equipment only to ensure that those who take a mean advantage are stopped and dealt with in the appropriate way.
In relation to material leaving quarries, whether it be readymixed concrete, lorries overladen with broken stone, gravel or that kind of material, all of which is sold by weight and emerges with an accompanying certification, is that certification sufficient to deal with the problems arising? The Minister might clarify that point.
I cannot give the Senator a specific answer to that. As the House is aware it is the Garda who enforce the law here. I have no doubt that the Garda Síochána, where they are satisfied that people possess a document which is a reasonable one conveying the weight of the vehicle concerned will be satisfied with that document. If they were not satisfied they would insist on weighing. Again it is a question of the Garda Síochána — who are our law enforcement agency — using good sense. I have no doubt that they always use good sense in matters like this.
If the Minister is prepared to look at the five-mile limit again I would be prepared to accept this. In practice a garda might not be able to form a judgment. Then he might discover that the nearest weighbridge was sited six miles away and he could do nothing about it and the provisions of this Bill will be to no avail. If the Minister examines the section afterwards in its practical operation, requiring the owner of a vehicle to go to the nearest weighbridge, whether that be sited within six, ten or 15 miles——
It could be 50 miles away.
I think it would be unlikely to be 50 miles away but it could be 20.
That is an important point which certainly we will look at. I take that point. Whether we should necessarily make them go to the nearest weighbridge would depend on the number and location of weighbridges. We do not want ot make life harder for the people involved who may be obeying the law. However, I take the point. We will examine the five-mile limit and if it does not operate as it should and was intended to, we can make the necessary changes on it.
I would prefer if the Minister did not consider saying that no matter what the distance, they can go to the nearest weighbridge. The nearest weighbridge could be 20 miles away. It is difficult for anyone to judge whether a vehicle is overweight. For stone, sand or gravel the amount a vehicle can take is usually measured in cubic yards and the body of the vehicle is designed to take a certain weight. If the material is heaped up or moist, the vehicle might be a little overweight. If somebody decides that a vehicle with load is overweight and the driver, who is doing a tough job, is sent on a wild-goose chase 20 miles to find out that it is not overweight, who is to compensate him for his time and his lorry?
Five miles would be a reasonable distance and perhaps that could be extended a little. To provide that the vehicle must go the nearest weighbridge which might be 15, 20 of even 30 miles away would be crazy. I have the same faith as the Minister has in a garda using his common sense, but a garda is not a judge of the weight of what is in a vehicle any more than a draper is a judge of what is wrong with the engine of a car — each to his own job. Some counties have no weighbridges capable of taking some of these vehicles and the driver may have to go into the next county. Therefore I ask the Minister to consider this point seriously. While I would agree with a distance of five miles and even a small extension to that, I would not agree with giving freedom to send a man into another county because somebody might think his vehicle and contents are overweight.
Senator Daly is right and the matter is more serious than he says. Consider a truck driver trying to catch the ferry at Dublin or Rosslare being asked to turn back and go 20 miles; he is late for the ferry and he has a consignment of material for some factory in Düsseldorf or some such place where his cargo is awaited for continuation of production at a plant. If he misses the ferry and cannot proceed until the following day, will he get any compensation? If his weight is found to be in order and he is obliged to travel that 20 miles, will he get compensation if he misses the ferry and loses his contract with the firm for whom he is hauling? Who is at fault if that firm brings an action against the driver and he in turn brings an action against the Minister for Justice? I suppose the Minister will tell me that nobody will be compensated in such a case.
Senator Daly raised the point of the five miles and talked about the undue hardship of having to travel 20 or more miles. I said that we would consider the five-mile provision to see if it was working. I did not indicate or consider that the distance might be 20 or 25 miles. As I have said, we are not in the business of creating hardship. We could use dynamic axle-weighers and if we were satisfied that we had a reasonable case for a further check that then should and could be done. The idea behind the five miles is that we would not be forcing big trucks to travel long distances. However, if the provision does not work then we will examine it again.
The question has been asked, if a driver misses the ferry and is sued by his employer whom does he sue? He sues nobody. He does not sue us. We have the enactment of law. The Garda are entitled to stop a vehicle and if they are satisfied that the driver is committing an offence, under the law as it stands they may ask him to go five miles to a weighbridge and if in the course of that he happens to miss the ferry he is not in a position to sue the Garda because they are doing their legitimate job. They are not contravening or breaking any law or liable to be sued for that.
Is there any compensation?
There is not.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 5 and 6 agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Amendment No. 6 is not relevant to the Bill. It is out of order.
Can you give me the reason why?
It is not relevant to the Bill because the Bill deals with penalties.
I must accept your ruling, a Cathaoirligh, but let me say to the Minister that it is necessary that some regulation about a current disc be enforced, and I ask him to look into this aspect. While I know now that it is not relevant and is ruled out of order according to the Cathaoirleach, I still think it is necessary for somebody to have a look in some other section of administration at the question of having a current disc.
Now you have it said.
Let me reply briefly because it is important——
You are not in order either.
I mentioned on Second Stage that section 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1961 gives power for the use of discs for insurance purposes. In 1983 an announcement was made that such discs would be brought in after due consultation. Consultations and discussions are proceeding at the moment and I hope that at some time during the year we will be making an announcement to meet the Senator's requirements.
May I make a comment as a matter of interest? I can recall in 1983 writing out a notice of motion for discussion in the Seanad dealing with the cost of motor insurance and a report that was referred to many times in this debate. On my way home that evening I heard on radio that Deputy Cluskey had made a ministerial order allowing for these discs, and my whole case was ruined.
Section 7 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.