MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern has published a Fines Bill, aimed at reducing the numbers imprisoned for non-payment of fines.
It will allow for the payment of fines by instalments, will provide for the indexation of fines and include provision for assessment of a person’s capacity to pay. It will also give the courts power to impose a community service order for non-payment of a fine by the due date.
It will also give the courts power to make a recovery order, that is, to treat an unpaid fine in the same way as the non-payment of a civil debt (a personal debt).
However, there are no proposals to end the practice where people can be imprisoned for the non-payment of a civil debt, despite calls from Opposition parties and the UN Committee on Human Rights to end the use of imprisonment to enforce civil debts.
This provision runs counter both to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Government has been urged to change it. It is being challenged in the courts at present, where the Irish Commission on Human Rights has been granted permission to appear as amicus curiae(friend of the court).
The Fines Bill 2009 provides for the indexation of fines imposed by the District Court. Where a fine is not paid, the courts will be able to appoint a receiver to recover the fine or its equivalent value in property.
Mr Ahern, said: “I want to reduce, as far as possible, a dependence on imprisonment for default on payment of fines. I must emphasise that while very few persons are in prison at any one time solely for non-payment of a fine, I am determined through this legislation to further reduce those numbers.”
He said that a new provision for “equality of impact” provided the courts with the powers to inquire into the financial circumstances of a person and take into account the impact of those circumstances on the person or on his or her dependants before determining the amount of a fine to impose.
The Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Charlie Flanagan, welcomed the publication of the Bill, but said that it came a full two years after an almost identical Bill was published by Fine Gael but ignored by successive justice ministers.
He said an overhaul of fines legislation was urgently required because people were under increasing pressure to meet their debts in the downturn, and it was costing the State a fortune to jail those who fail to pay fines.
“For example, last year the State imprisoned 276 debt defaulters for failing to repay creditors. Fifty-four people were locked up for failing to pay their TV licence fee. The average sentence in these cases was 20 days, meaning it cost the taxpayer circa €1.3 million to jail debt defaulters and over €250,000 to jail people who didn’t pay the TV licence fee,” he said.
The Labour Party spokesman Pat Rabbitte described the Bill as “a modest step forward”, but what was really needed was a Sentencing Bill which would deal with consistency in sentencing, fines and the issue of imprisonment for civil debt.