The power to terminate motorists penalty points in the future may possibly be taken out of the hands of senior Garda officers and centralised here at the Garda Fixed Charge processing office in Thurles, Co Tipperary.
According to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, a much stricter system is to be set up by the Garda Inspectorate, latter who were established eight years ago to review Garda procedures and recommend and oversee policing reform.
Under this new system Garda officers, with the rank of Superintendent and higher, would no longer have discretion to cancel points in cases where legitimate reasons for infringements had been made known or where motorists complained of certain errors.
Future approaches on the points system would be sent to the Thurles Co Tipperary office and would be logged and regularly audited, especially with regard to all reasons for any future cancellation decisions that might be taken.
New legislation will now be required to provide for any future such reforms, but the old Latin question still remains; “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? which roughly translated from Latin to English means; “Who will guard the guards themselves?”
I’m sure if I were a Guard I’d much prefer to hold my hands up and say “Sorry Uncle Paddy there’s nothing I can do about it”. Its a no brainer really.