Under Section 5(1) of the Road Traffic Act 2014 data relating to penalty points is provided to Insurance Companies from my Department's National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF). There is also a signed agreement in place between my Department and the insurance industry for the provision of penalty point data.
The data provided consists of the penalty point offence description, number of penalty points applied for the offence, date of the offence, start date of offence on the NVDF, the total number of days remaining for the offence; and the total number of penalty points applied.
Penalty Point Data is exchanged between the Department and the insurance industry via a secure web service interface mechanism and the data is made available in real-time on a per query basis. Penalty Point data on the NVDF is available to all vehicle insurers registered with the Central Bank of Ireland. Any insurer can seek access to the same information by making an application to my Department.