{"id":913,"date":"2013-08-19T14:14:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T14:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/?p=913"},"modified":"2013-10-29T07:31:29","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T07:31:29","slug":"increase-in-number-of-people-jailed-for-tv-license-fines-extremely-worrying-says-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/increase-in-number-of-people-jailed-for-tv-license-fines-extremely-worrying-says-crowe\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase in number of people jailed for TV license fines \u2018extremely worrying\u2019 says Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Increase in number of people jailed for TV license fines \u2018extremely worrying\u2019 says Crowe<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe, responding to the news that the jailing of individuals for the non-payment of TV licences in the locality is on the increase, has said that it is extremely worrying and questioned the use of jail for victimless crimes like this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, I am informed that seven people from this locality were issued a summons to be incarcerated in Mountjoy Jail for the non-payment of a television licence and associated fines for 2009\/2010 period.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been told to present themselves at Tallaght Garda Station where they are loaded on a mini bus and transported to jail to serve a sentence from four hours to a week in the jail.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis week another twelve people are facing a similar fate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that many of those heading to jail were not aware that they are entitled to apply for more time to pay their fine either through the court were they were convicted or through the appeals court.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am getting reports of people being summoned even though they do not live in the house where the television or radio is alleged to be and in one case where the wife of a wheelchair bound man (who is entitled to a free licence) is also facing jail time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am also aware of a number of cases where people are turning to unlicensed money lenders in order to avoid going to prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is extremely annoying and upsetting for most people to hear of cases like this and the very real possibility of dangerous and habitual criminals being released early, to facilitate the arrival of these alleged debtors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of sending people to jail is an uncomfortable reality but I personally don\u2019t believe that sending someone to prison for a victimless crime like the non-payment of a licence does anything to enhance or protect our justice system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear that the legislation to allow for structured weekly or monthly payments of these fines needs to be prioritised.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Increase in number of people jailed for TV license fines \u2018extremely worrying\u2019 says Crowe Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD Se\u00e1n Crowe, responding to the news that the jailing of individuals for the non-payment of TV licences in the locality is on the increase, has said that it is extremely worrying and questioned the use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions\/915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}