Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 January 2014
500. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No.178 of 23 October 2013, if he will provide for each month of 2013 the number of motorists appearing in court charged with offences under the Road Traffic Acts incurring penalty points who avoided convictions because they agreed to make a donation to the court poor box. [2408/14]
View answerThe court poor box is a non-statutory system used mostly by the District Courts to impose a financial charge on a defendant to be used for a charitable purpose, usually instead of imposing a criminal conviction. Payments made to the court poor box are accounted for by the court office concerned and the accounting procedures are subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Generally, charities are the recipients of poor box contributions but the decision is solely at the discretion of the Judge who is independent in the matter of sentencing, as in other matters concerning the exercise of judicial functions, subject only to the Constitution and the law.
In order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the table below shows the number of defendants recorded on the Courts Service Criminal Case Tracking System (CCTS) who were before the court for offences under the Road Traffic Act incurring penalty points for each month of 2013 and the outcome of whose cases involved payments to the Court Poor Box. None of these people were convicted of the offences.
|
Month |
Number of Defendants |
|
January |
183 |
|
February |
157 |
|
March |
96 |
|
April |
166 |
|
May |
177 |
|
June |
141 |
|
July |
129 |
|
August |
0 |
|
September |
129 |
|
October |
198 |
|
November |
234 |
|
December |
144 |
|
TOTAL |
1,754 |
