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Thousands of motoring prosecutions struck out

Courts failing to hear motoring cases as summons are not delivered.

Thousands of motorists are being given a pass by the legal system, as one half of all summons relating to motoring offences since 2017 have not been served.

According to The Independent, out of 61,000 speeding cases listed for court hearings, more than 27,000 were struck out by the court for a lack of summons. Those figures run from January 2017 to June 2019.

If a driver fails to pay a fixed-charge penalty notice, then a summons is supposed to be issued so that the matter can be brought before the court.

According to the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, there are a number of reasons for why a summons may not be served, but in many cases it's down to the individual in question actively avoiding the summons.

Last year, a Department of Justice survey said that there had been an improvement in the handing out of summons for motoring offences, but these new figures in fact show that there has been little or no change in the figures since 2017.

The data on failed summons was uncovered by independent TD Tommy Broughan, who requested the information from the Department. The numbers shown to The Independent demonstrate that there is wide geographical variation in the likelihood of you receiving a summons. If you live in Wexford, Limerick, or Westmeath, for example, you're much more likely to be served than someone living in Monaghan, Sligo, Mayo, or Kerry. In fact, Kilorglin in Co. Kerry seems to be the best (if that's quite the right word) place to live if you want to avoid a summons - 159 out of 165 summons were struck out in the period covered. Monaghan was the county with the highest proportion of strike-outs - 60 per cent.

Speaking to The Independent, The Parc Road Safety Group expressed disappointment at the figures. "This is showing a lot of summonses are not being served. There are also massive disparities in service rates across the country," said Parc spokesperson Susan Gray. "This is despite a working group being set up in 2014 to examine how the rate of summons serving could be improved and to regularly monitor the level of serving throughout the country."

The data also shows that penalty points are not being correctly applied. Out of 12,495 speeding convictions, only 4,201 cases included the driver's licence being recorded.

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Published on September 24, 2019