Last month I was issued with fixed penalty notice for speeding. I completed the form and returned the signed form and my cheque in payment of the fine and awaited notification that points had been added to my licence (the first I'd have received).
A few days later I got a letter from the payments processing section of an Garda Siochana, attaching the documents I sent them including my cheque, informing me that the licence number (driver number) I had given was not valid and they could not process the penalty notice.
I checked my licence with the information I had filled in on the Fixed Penalty Notice and they were identical, so I phoned the payments processing section and spoke with a member of staff (I don't know if this was a Guard or a civilian employee) who, after some consultation with a colleague, asked me to get a letter from the licencing authority explaining the situation regarding my licence, and stating that on receipt of the letter, that would be the end of the matter.
I contacted the licencing authority, who sent me a letter stating that my licence was one of a small number of licences issued using some old database and that it never got transferred to some new database, but that the licence was both valid and current.
I parcelled up this latest letter with all the other documentation and a cover note and sent it back to the Payments Processing Section last week.
Today I got a letter back from the Gardai instructing me to get a new licence and stating that it was imperative that I contact them at once when I get the new licence number as my existing licence number was invalid "through no fault of my own" to quote from the latest Garda letter.
My question is - why should I bother?
A secondary question is - can they compel me to get a new licence so they can stick points on it?
I inadvertantly uncovered a loophole in the system, do I now have to help the authorities plug it? Isn't it a bit like getting the bill for my own electric chair and the electricity it will use then being asked to throw the switch as well?
A few days later I got a letter from the payments processing section of an Garda Siochana, attaching the documents I sent them including my cheque, informing me that the licence number (driver number) I had given was not valid and they could not process the penalty notice.
I checked my licence with the information I had filled in on the Fixed Penalty Notice and they were identical, so I phoned the payments processing section and spoke with a member of staff (I don't know if this was a Guard or a civilian employee) who, after some consultation with a colleague, asked me to get a letter from the licencing authority explaining the situation regarding my licence, and stating that on receipt of the letter, that would be the end of the matter.
I contacted the licencing authority, who sent me a letter stating that my licence was one of a small number of licences issued using some old database and that it never got transferred to some new database, but that the licence was both valid and current.
I parcelled up this latest letter with all the other documentation and a cover note and sent it back to the Payments Processing Section last week.
Today I got a letter back from the Gardai instructing me to get a new licence and stating that it was imperative that I contact them at once when I get the new licence number as my existing licence number was invalid "through no fault of my own" to quote from the latest Garda letter.
My question is - why should I bother?
A secondary question is - can they compel me to get a new licence so they can stick points on it?
I inadvertantly uncovered a loophole in the system, do I now have to help the authorities plug it? Isn't it a bit like getting the bill for my own electric chair and the electricity it will use then being asked to throw the switch as well?