Tax Disc Anomaly Criticised In Court

The state’s inability to prosecute the owner of commercial vehicles that are not taxed has been criticised in court.

At Wednesday’s sitting of Donegal District Court, Judge Desmond Zaidan hit out over what he said were shortcomings in the PULSE Garda computer system.

Dealing with a case involving failure to display a tax disc, Judge Zaidan asked gardaí why the driver and not the company was being prosecuted.

Judge Zaidan said he was not blaming the gardaí involved, but he said it was not fair that the driver would be prosecuted when the principle offender was the company in question.

The court was told that the driver being prosecuted was stopped in January 2007 near Donegal town driving a refuse truck. The vehicle was owned by the company he worked for and was not taxed.

Garda Ignatius McCready told the court that there was a problem with the official PULSE computer system which meant that limited companies could not be summonsed. He said he had raised the issue a number of times with civil service officials but as yet the problem has not been resolved.

The judge said that a private citizen should not have to pay a fine for a company that is effectively the 'money man'.

In response, Garda Inspector Paul Kilcoyne told the court that the inability to summons limited companies has been there for years and has not been dealt with.

The judge said that it was putting it mildly to say it was not right, adding that it was something which was open to abuse.

He struck the case out following an application by the man's solicitor.

(BMcC)