The government are still ignoring the fact that there are so many people receiving some fines for the first time in their lives. Most of these people are not serial offenders, continuosly not paying road tax or tv licence charges. A lot of these cases are people who lost their jobs, trying to pay mortgages on 1 salary now ans struggling to make ends meet. I just think it’s really sad. Making an example of decent people for petty things when violent criminals are receiving probation because of over crowding issues. A persons entire financial situation should be examined before any action is taken.

Why not let people pay in instalments direct from pay or social welfare. If someone gets a fine of 1000 euro and given 2 months to pay and is only gettin €188 from social welfare they obviously aren’t going to pay. If they do a 20 euro or 30 euro installments direct from their money then problem solved

Take it from source, either from social welfare or paycheck. Problem solved

what’s going to happen everyone who doesn’t pay the house hold charge.

o what a wonderful legal system we have.. in my professional capacity I deal with the result of crime every day and its perpetrators. Individuals with countless charges against them and they never spend a wet weekend behind bars. Mr Shatter needs to get grafting on its reform he might actually score some brownie points with the gen pop. jailing people for non payment of fines is not right or moral. payment by installments would indeed be the answer.

Why fines can’t be deducted straight from a persons salary or social welfare is beyond me. This is what’s done in Scotland, England and elsewhere. It is a complete waste of Garda and Prison Officers tume, time that could be utilised elsewhere doing something more constructive and beneficial

Need to find a new penalty system other than fines. Withhold benefits perhaps?

Ah yes the aul crime stats will show that the ‘justice’ minister is relentlessly pursuing these dangerous criminals in the name of justice…

Tell me how they can bring in legislation in a matter if weeks to close down headshops and this is going to take years.

MMM. Crunch those numbers. We have 25 people a day being jailed for not paying fines and at any one time less than 0.5% of those imprisoned are there for not paying fines.

The prison population in Ireland is about 5000 – a little more maybe. What is 0.5% of 5000? Guess what, it’s 25!

So what we have is 25 people a day being taken to prison, signed in (so they are recorded as a prisoner today) then immediately released. And in the case of fines, they mainly now owe nothing – since the sentence given is usually ‘Pay x OR serve x days in jail’.

It’s a costly farce. There has to be a better way.

Well, when you have the insanity of a homeless person or a rock bottom drug addict or alcoholic receiving a fine for a theft or public order offence, this situation is what is going to happen. Sentencing itself needs to be examined as well as any system of enforcing a punishment. What’s the point in imposing a fine on someone who a) Is never going to be able to afford it no matter how much is docked from their dole or b) Who’d be likely to commit further crime to raise said money?

Fines cannot be taken from salaries or any other income in installments because the IT system used by the Courts service is so obsolete it’s doesn’t allow for payment by installments!

What a ridiculous waste of resources and time..an almost Victorian way of dealing with a modern problem

Put them in jail too. sure y not target the easy ones. that what the like

Articles about how many people are going to jail for non payment of fines are published periodically and always fail to mention how many of these people are checked in and then checked out of prison in a matter of hours.

I knew a guy who had unpaid fines totalling about 2,000 euro and he was checked in and out in about an hour and then got his bus fare home.

Pay your fines people, you’re costing the rest of us a fortune! Government – make it easier for people to pay if they can’t afford to give all at once, small weekly direct debits over a long period of time.

It doesn’t mention how long these people are spending “in jail” in lieu of paying the fine. “in jail” may also be a rather loose term. Would you pay a €1000 fine or use the revolving door of a short term detention centre? No toothbrush or overnight bag necessary.

A flawed system being taken advantage of. As has been pointed out by everyone previous to me, a wage, salary, welfare deduction from source would be a very fair way of accounting for these outstanding fines. The cost to the state for placing these penalty defaulters in detention far outweighs the capital generated by those who pay the fines. An archaic system being shown up for what it really is. This country needs fresh blood with new ideas. We need an overhaul of our welfare, health, education and judicial systems.

Use one of the prisons that have been closed and make people do their time at weekends. For the ones that try to avoid it put them in a real prison

Alan Shatter, taking it to the criminals un society.

The Dark Shatter Rises…..?