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Prison Committals

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 September 2013

Wednesday, 18 September 2013

Questions (1123)

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

1123. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the full year saving to the Exchequer of commuting all prison sentences of six months or less for non-payment of fines and replacing them with community service orders. [38659/13]

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Written answers

While it is not possible to provide detailed costings I can inform the Deputy that the number of committals to prison for non-payment of a court order fine in 2012 was 8,304.

I am strongly of the view that we need to keep the numbers of people committed to prison for the non-payment of fines to the absolute minimum. I recently published the Fines Payment and Recovery Bill which represents a major reform of our fine payment and recovery system and provides for the payment of fines by instalment and attachment of earnings.

Allowing everyone to pay a fine by instalment and introducing attachment of earnings are important new reforms to the fine collection system which will lead to improved collection rates for fines. The new measures provided for, combined with the requirement that judges must take a person’s financial circumstances into account when setting a fine, should result in a reduction in the number of people committed to prison.

When this Bill is enacted, it will be easier for people to pay a fine and where they fail to do so, there will be sufficient alternatives available to the courts to all but eliminate the need to commit anyone to prison for the non-payment of fines.

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