About 113,500 bench warrants were outstanding at the end of June, a reduction of 8,500 on the 122,000 at the start of the year, according to Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.
She said the situation was unacceptable and had to be dealt with, but pointed out that more than 90 per cent of all arrest warrants related to the non-payment of fines for road traffic and other offences.
The Garda Inspectorate report showed some of the difficulties were “very much tied to the technology”. It also provided a “clear way forward. I expect Garda management to note and implement the recommendations.”
However, Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Niall Collins said if a “plank of our criminal justice system is breaking down to the degree described, the figures must serve as a wake-up call to the Minister and the Government”.
The Limerick TD said the figures showed a “continuing major dysfunction in the execution of bench warrants, particularly as such warrants are the bread and butter upon which the criminal justice system works when judges are ordering people to appear before them or in committing people to prison”.
Admission
He said the Minister’s reply was an admission that there was a failure to execute arrest warrants.
Ms Fitzgerald said the problem of enforcing warrants was long-standing, pointing out that the number of warrants outstanding in May 2008 when Fianna Fáil was in power, was 117,756 “or higher than now”.
She said genuine difficulties did arise when it did not prove possible to enforce a warrant. Newly implemented fines legislation provided alternatives to prison and that would significantly reduce the number of warrants gardaí would be obliged to enforce as well as the numbers imprisoned.