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MORE THAN 2,000 people are still being sent to prison for not paying court fines, according to the Irish Prison Service report due to be published shortly.
In 2014, the United Nations expressed concern at the number of people going to prison for failure to pay fines in Ireland and told them to enact a law that would prevent it and offer an alternative to imprisonment.
Two years later a new law came into effect – the Fines Act – introducing new measures for fine repayments.
All fines over €100 can now be paid by installments, which means people are only brought to court if they default on repayments. Fines are also now set at a level that considers a person’s financial circumstances.
If people still don’t pay up, a judge can make an attachment order to deduct the outstanding debt from income other than social welfare.
In 2016, 8,439 people were incarcerated for not paying a fine, which was a significant drop from 15,099 in 2016.
This week the Cabinet noted the latest report shows that in 2017 there were 2,261 people imprisoned for non-payment of fines, a 73% decrease.
Court fine
A government spokesperson said the latest figures show the first real impact of the implementation of the fines legislation.
The report also finds that there has been an increase of 7% in community orders issued by the courts. In 2016, there were 2,067 orders made, while in 2017 there were 2,215.
In 2017 there were 9,287 people put in prison, which is a decrease of 38.5% on the 2016 total of 15,099.
Ministers also noted that the introduction of an amendment to the Prison Rules in 2017 has brought Ireland into line with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (known as the Mandela Rules) in respect of issues of restricted regime and solitary confinement.
The government has welcomed the “very significant drop” in the number of prisoners in solitary confinement. These prisoners are removed from the general prison population and are on their own for up to 22 or 23 hours.
Solitary confinement
In the first quarter of 2017, there were 72 held in solitary confinement. This number fell to nine in quarter four of last year.
This is a significant fall from 211 prisoners being held in solitary confinement in 2013.
At this weeks Cabinet meeting, ministers also noted the Joint Irish Prison Service / Probation Service Strategic Plan 2018-2020 which sets out an ambitious set of actions and a multi-agency approach to offender management and rehabilitation from pre to post imprisonment.
The aim of joint up thinking is to reduce re-offending and improve prisoner outcomes. The strategy is underpinned by a recognition that the costs of re-offending by ex-prisoners can be devastating and long-term and are frequently felt by the most vulnerable in our society.
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Can you be jailed for not paying your Dail bar tab?
@Charles Coughlan: jailed? You’d be made Taoiseach!
So I can’t post my comment as r@pist is an offensive word? The sentences they receive are what’s offensive. Journal give your second rate AI software the boot please. Toxic that
@DaisyMay: well said
Can people not work off fines if they can’t pay? They could do something on weekends for a tenner an hour until they pay it off. It seems strange to spend money detaining someone for owing money.
@SC: Costing the state even more money
But if someone is convicted of having files of child porn they walk scot free with a suspended sentence
Amateurs …. Get yourself a couple of previous convictions and boom you won’t be touched.
No bankers???????
Why is that Civil Servant in the story below still in a job????
@Stephen Duffy: the answer is in your question Stephen. Civil Servant…
Steal billions your a free man …
Sensationalist headline doesn’t really reflect the content of the story.
@Walt Jabsco: alternative headline : The number of people jailed for not paying fines falls from 15,000 to 2,000 in 3 years.
Trust me spend all you want on credit cards you never have to pay it back and if you go to court over it you can offer 2 euro a week
If 100euro fine means jail, what is 7 billion?
What if you are accused and convicted of an offence that you DID NOT commit and you know it was NOT you? Your only means of protest is to refuse to pay any fine and go to prison in protest. If prison as an option is removed and enforced collection of fines from your income is carried out it gives the impression that you paid up as a guilty person with no way to restore your good name. There have been many cases of mistaken identity over the years.
@John Hagin Meade:
I doubt if many cases of mistaken identity are involved here – unhappiness with the verdict is probably a common enough state of mind among all convicted!
@Michael Kavanagh: “I doubt if many cases of mistaken identity are involved here”.
Surely one is too many, unless of course you don’t really care.
Yet again we need an outside organisation to sort our mess out. Why don’t we just hand the running of the country over as successive Irish governments just arent up to the job.
@Tony Le Blanc: we did,the Germans !
Good
On my estate 3 mothers who can’t make ends meet were taken in paddy wagons to a cell for not paying their TV licence, where they spent most of the day as they had no money to pay the fine. These mothers had to arrange for neighbours to take care of their children. They were released until another date to appear in court. They were fined 300 euro to pay before next October. These mothers can’t find the money to pay the 160 for a TV licence let alone 300. They have a welfare payment of 210. Once the electricity, gas, rent, refuse, phone and food is for each week they are lucky if is anything left over. Children allowance has to be marked out for birthdays, xmas, uniforms, shoes + sundries like dental stuff not covered, a school item during the year and often they have to just say no.
‘ other than social welfare’, therein lies the nub of the problem
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