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for whom the bill tolls
Driver fined €25,000 in M50 toll-dodging crackdown
Transport Infrastructure Ireland are taking a new hardline stance on those who don’t pay their tolls, including the seizure of offenders’ cars.
A FINE OF €25,000 was slapped on one motorist in 2015 for persistent non-payment of tolls on Dublin’s M50 motorway.
The huge fine has emerged as Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), the new guise of the former-National Roads Authority, announced the rate of compliance for toll-payments nationwide.
The current compliance rate on the M50 toll (which has been barrier-free for some years with all tolls paid after the fact) stands at 96.7%, meaning just 3.3% of fines go uncollected.
“TII is working to ensure that there is fairness in the system for the people who are playing by the rules and paying their toll,” a spokesman for the body told TheJournal.ie.
The way we do that is by going after the 3.3% who think the rules don’t apply to them.
In terms of toll-enforcement, the TII is starting to show something of a tougher streak, with all non-payment chased down by their legal representatives, Kerry-based solicitors Pierse FitzGibbon.
The compliance rate for the toll has improved in recent years; however TII estimate that between 1,600 and 2,000 persistent offenders remain.
Fines
The highest fine dished out for repeated non-payment in 2015 was €25,000.
This amounted to five separate €5,000 fines being issued as the offender in question repeatedly failed to show up in court.
One criminal case from 2014 saw a person who had failed to pay their M50 toll on 437 occasions in nine months receive a criminal conviction and a fine of €15,000.
Pierse Fitzgibbon process some 6,000 claims against non-payers annually, with in the region of 300-400 criminal summons made on behalf of TII.
2,875 civil claims judgements were granted in favour of TII in 2015.
A criminal summons can carry a penalty of up to €5,000 and possibly six months in prison. TII introduced criminal prosecutions last year for the first time in a bid to tackle persistent offenders.
But TII also have the option to both publish offenders’ names (in Stubbs Gazette) and refer them to a sheriff whereupon goods to the value of unpaid fines can be seized, including vehicles.
486 such judgements were sent to a sheriff last year resulting in the seizure of 42 vehicles.
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