Penalty points plan hit by further delays

The computerisation of the driver penalty points system will not be in place until the end of this year at the earliest and much longer delays may occur, it has emerged.

Contract talks on the administration of the system have not been finalised between the Department of Justice and An Post.

Gardaí have only piloted their technology in a handful of Garda divisions and a vital computer link between the Garda computer systems and the Courts Service summons system will not be in place until the end of the year at the earliest.

Until this link is in place the full roll-out of the penalty points system, which will eventually include 70 offences punishable by points, will not be possible.

News of the further delay comes as a major blow to Government and Garda plans to reduce road deaths by 25 per cent to below 300 by the end of next year.

Reducing road deaths is now a major priority for An Garda Síochána. Some €30 million has been made available this year for the establishment of a new dedicated Garda traffic corps, which will number 1,200 by 2008.

Some 600 of these are new recruits will be made available to the corps as an extra 2,000 gardaí are recruited into the force over the next three years at a cost of €330 million.

However, in the absence of a speedy roll-out of a computerised points system road deaths are likely to continue increasing.

Conor Faughnan, of AA Roadwatch, described as a "conspicuous embarrassment" the lack of a computerised system.

The Government and road safety organisations are hopeful the full roll-out of the computerised penalty points system will force drivers to re-evaluate their behaviour and drive more carefully and that lives will be saved as a result, as was the case when penalty points were first introduced.

In the 12-month period after the introduction of the penalty points on November 1st, 2002, there were 332 road deaths, compared to 409 deaths in the similar period in the previous year, a reduction of 77 deaths.

While road deaths fell after the introduction of penalty points they have dramatically increased again this year. Last month 41 people lost their lives on the roads, the highest monthly total for six years.

This year there have been 173 deaths on the roads to the end of last week, 17 more than the same period last year.

Traffic enforcement was identified as one of six major strategic goals by An Garda Síochána in its policing plan for 2005.

The Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has confirmed that talks between his Department have not yet been completed and this was unlikely to happen before the end of next month.

An Post will be responsible for posting notices of detection to motorists. It will also have a facility at its post offices enabling motorists to pay fines for speeding and other offences over the counter.

Once this contract is finalised gardaí will then begin testing their fixed-charge processing system, the information technology needed to run the computerised system.

This technology has already been successfully tested in the Dublin metropolitan region, Cork City and parts of Louth and Meath and could be rolled out across all divisions within a two-month period.

Until the Garda computer system is linked to the courts service system the full computerisation of penalty points will not be possible. The Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government will also supply details for these records from the national driver file and the national vehicle file.