Some District Courts continue to allow motorists to avoid convictions for penalty point offences by making charity donations despite a 2014 High Court ruling holding that such an approach is inappropriate.
New Courts Service figures show 480 penalty-point road traffic offences were struck out between January 2022 and September 2025, with 459 motorists benefiting.
Eleven years ago the High Court ruled that statutory provisions making penalty points mandatory “supersede” the District Court’s common law jurisdiction to allow poor box donations in lieu of conviction.
“In such cases it must accordingly be concluded that the District Court enjoys no jurisdiction to impose an informal sanction short of actual conviction such as accepting a donation to the poor box, as this would amount to an indirect circumvention of these statutory provisions,” the judgment states.
Penalty points were introduced through the 2002 Road Traffic Act. The 2010 Road Traffic Act ruled out the use of the Probation Act (which enables an alternative to conviction) in such cases.
Following the 2014 ruling, then minister for transport Leo Varadkar confirmed the judgment “was circulated by the president of the District Court to all District Courts”.
Court Service figures show recent increases in the use of the poor box and the avoidance of convictions. The figures were released by the Department of Justice in reply to a question from Oireachtas transport committee chairman Michael Murphy.
Last year, €1.67 million was paid to charities via the poor box; however, this figure includes donations for offences to which penalty points do not apply.
In 2022, 133 drivers avoided a court conviction with penalty point punishment by instead giving a charity donation. The figure dropped to 100 motorists in 2023 but rose again in 2024 when 168 drivers escaped conviction for 180 offences.
In this year until the end of September 58 motorists avoided conviction for 65 penalty point offences.
The Dublin Metropolitan District dismissed 263 offences for 244 drivers between 2022 and September this year. Cork City District Court struck out 14 offences in the same period, while in Carlow 16 offences were dismissed, and in Dundalk 13 offences were quashed.
In Ballinasloe, eight drivers benefited, while 16 motorists in Loughrea avoided convictions over the same period.
Portlaoise District Court struck out 22 relevant motoring offences between 2022 and 2024.
The Parc road-safety campaign group raised concerns after it noticed an increase in local media reports of penalty point convictions being quashed for a donation to the poor box.
Chairwoman Susan Gray said, “the use of the court poor box trivialises what are very serious offences … It deprives the driver of the opportunity to change behaviour. It devalues human life and health. It also devalues the work of An Garda Síochána and wastes taxpayers’ money bringing offenders to court.”
She noted that reform of the poor box has been under consideration for more than a decade, with no concrete action taken.
Mr Murphy, the Fine Gael TD who asked the parliamentary questions about the use of the poor box, acknowledged donations support local charities doing valuable work but said it is “important” to have a deterrent to help road safety and to “maintain public confidence in the penalty point system”.
The president of the District Court, Paul Kelly, said the law in relation to offences that attract penalty points “was clarified by the High Court in the case of Kennedy v Gibbons in 2014″, which “held that the ‘poor box’ should not be used in such cases”.
“The attention of judges of the District Court has been drawn to this from time to time,” he added. “I am not aware of the circumstances in the cases mentioned in the reply to [the parliamentary question], and I cannot therefore comment on individual decisions made by judges.”
The Association of Judges of Ireland and the Minister for Justice were contacted for comment.