On 19 July the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter announced the publication of the Fines (Payment and Recovery) Bill. The Bill allows for the payment of fines by instalments over 12 months. Where a person fails to pay a fine he or she will be required to return to court where an order may be made for an attachment of earnings, a recovery order (where a receiver is appointed to recover assets to the value of the fine) or a community service order. Fines will not be deducted from social welfare payments. Instead, those on social welfare who fail to pay fines in instalments will be subject either to a recovery order or a community service order. Prison will be a last resort.
Commenting on the Bill, Minister Shatter said, "Last year, some 8,300 people were sent to prison for the non-payment of fines. Those people comprised the vast majority of those sentenced to short sentences by our courts and committed to our prisons in 2012. These new measures provided for in the Fines Bill 2013, combined with the requirement that judges must take a person’s financial circumstances into account when setting a fine, should result in a reduction in the number of people committed to prison.”
However the payment of fines by instalments was already provided for by the Fines Act 2010. The relevant provisions of the 2010 Act were not enacted due to IT problems within the Courts Service. €400,000 was made available in the 2012 budget for the upgrading of the Courts Service computer system.
Click here to read a 2012 article in the Irish Examiner about the Fines Act 2010.
Section 5 of the Bill, which replicates s14 of the Fines Act 2010, introduces the concept of equality of impact in relation to fines. It obliges the court to take into account the financial circumstances of the defendant in deciding the amount of any fine. According to the Bill’s explanatory memorandum “This will ensure that when a person is convicted of an offence the effect of any fine imposed on the person, or his or her dependants, will not be significantly abated or made more severe by reason of his or her financial circumstances.”
Part 4 of the Bill provides for attachment of earnings orders to be made where a person has failed to pay a fine. The Bill also includes sanctions for employers who fail to comply with attachment of earnings orders. However the Bill does not include any safeguards to protect the employment rights of persons if they were victimised by their employers because they were the subject of an attachment of earnings order.
Click here to view a Government press release.
Click here to view a 2011 article on Human Rights In Ireland commenting on the Fines Act 2010.
Click here to view an article from the Independent.