Sit tight, it'll be fine

Here's a good one. It was buried deep in last week's Exchequer returns figures. If it weren't for an eagle-eyed colleague of mine, I would've missed it. She understands these things, whereas deciphering detailed financial data is not my forte.

Put an ancient papyrus inscribed with faded hieroglyphics before me alongside a Department of Finance press release, and I'd be hard-pressed to tell which was which. Which is probably why I'm sitting on a hard bench in tattered rags writing this and not bathing in liquid gold, using €1 million notes to light massive Cuban cigars rolled for me by Miss Havana 2007 on her silken-skinned thighs.

Anyway, the nugget is this - the amount collected by our lovely Government in motoring fines has dropped by nearly 10 per cent over last year.

Receipts are down from €7,543,000 in the first six months of 2006, to €6,846,000 in the same period this year. Small beer in the overall context of a projected deficit of €546 million for 2007 admittedly, but I won't let that get in the way of a good rant.

No reason was given for the drop. Presumably someone will have come up with a plausible reason by the time you read this. In the meantime, here's my take on it.

It is due to one of four factors:

1) Irish motorists are becoming more compliant and law-abiding and are, therefore, accumulating fewer fines;

2) People are just as naughty as ever, and simply aren't bothering to pay their fines;

3) Gardaí couldn't be bothered with the paperwork anymore;

4) Gardaí aren't passing on the fines that they do receive to the Exchequer and are spending them on posters of Michael McDowell, fact-finding trips to Guantanamo Bay and jacuzzis in their Garda stations instead.

Obviously, option four is balderdash. To even suggest it was true would be highly ill-advised, tantamount to a guarantee that unless I park my car in a locked steel box under my bed and never let it out, it'll have more tickets on it than the floor of a bookies' with a broken hoover.

Of the other three, much as I'd love to, I can't believe the first. Garda figures and personal experience would tend to support my belief that the average Irish motorist is about as law-abiding as a crack-ridden sewer-rat. Over 420,000 drivers have penalty points. Hardly indicative of an obedient society, is it?

Which leaves options two and three.

Option two could be down to either of two things. One involves the use of two fingers directed at the forces of authority in general. The second part of this option is more calculating. People have realised the courts system is so overloaded that they may never be called if they refuse to pay up, and opt to take their chances before an over-worked district court judge instead. Their gamble appears to be paying off.

As to option three, perhaps there is a bit of truth in it. They'd doubtless deny it, but I imagine there is huge frustration among gardaí with the courts and consequently, some may not be - how can I put this tactfully - entirely as "enthusiastic" about sending out fine notices as they could be.

Don't believe me? For once, I have a source to back up the wild allegations that are my stock in trade. A friend of mine was caught speeding in the north of the country a few months back. Concerned at not getting a Fixed Penalty Notice, and fearing a summons to appear in court, he rang the gardaí in the district where he was caught.

The garda who answered explained there was a backlog of around six months. Fair enough. But then - my friend claims - he uttered this bombshell: "You just sit tight and hope for the best." If you can wink conspiratorially down a phoneline, he was probably doing it.

Proof enough for you?