.
Kerry Circuit Court.
CASH payments for court fines into the court poor box are to come to an end in Kerry district courts.
Judge James O’Connor announced yesterday that from now on payments would have to be paid by cheque or postal order according to a report in the Irish Times.
Payments to the court poor box are usually opted for in the case of first time offences and minor convictions.
Judge O’Connor feels that it is unfair for court clerks to deal with amounts of cash which can total up to €2,500.
In 2014 Kerry amounted for 40% of the State’s total poor box payments.
€883,527 of €2 million paid out nationally came from court sittings in the county and mainly under the direction of Judge James O’Connor.
Kerry district courts are located in Tralee, Killarney, Dingle, Listowel, Cahirciveen, Killorglin and Kenmare.
The poor box is a non-statutory system used by the District Courts to impose a fine to be given to charity instead of a criminal conviction.
Judge James O’Connor should be getting rid of this out dated token practice which is used and abused by people who can afford to pay or supplement their way out of serving a real sentence or receiving proper sentence from the Justice system.
I will give just one example:
Figures released from the Department of Justice to Independent TD Tommy Broughan show more than 1,500 drivers avoided penalty points between 2014 and May 2015 after they made a poor box donation.
The poor box has always been an excellent way of giving to charity. Judge O’Conner has always been an advocate of it.
Surely helping those in need is a good way of getting people to think of other where it hurts the most, from their pocket.
The amount from his courts alone is magnificent.
The money collected in court poor boxes should remain in the vicinity. This thing of allocating Kerry rape crisis centre a few hundred euro whilst allocating sightsavers international €60,000 is disturbing.
To be honest Stephen, so many fundraising efforts concentrate on local charities, particularly in recent times, that international ones struggle to raise any finance at all – the poor box is one of the only routes for arbitrary funding left open to them.