Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 March 2015
103. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide a breakdown, based on each District Court, of the number of drivers in each month of 2014, and to date in 2015, who were before the District Court for offences under the Road Traffic Acts, incurring penalty points but who avoided convictions and penalty points because they agreed to make a donation to the court poor box. [12198/15]
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 made enquiries about 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 2014 and to March 2015 and the outcome of whose cases involved payments to the Court Poor Box. I am arranging for a table to be provided to the Deputy.
