State revenue from fines and penalties has increased yet again with an upsurge of 21% to September this year.
One of the increases was in the money paid over by drivers who have been pulled over and fined. The €70 million paid out for ‘breaches of the highway code’ is a 42% increase over the same period last year.
The greatest increase was for "other fines and various penalties," which rocketed 69% to €191 million.
Fines and penalties imposed on the public for tax offences, including foreclosures, increased 80% with half of the 3,850 items of property being people’s homes despite the state asking banks to go easy on mortgage defaulters to avoid increasing the number of homeless.
Despite this sound advice, the total number of homes seized and sold off by the state machine is nearly 10,000 since the beginning of 2013 with many families unable to access any state support towards subsequent housing costs.
The contract between the state and the people has long since been torn up and the grey economy continues to grow as the economically active public devises more and cunning ways to avoid being caught cheating.
The result of making people homeless, seizing their cars and other means of getting to work, and local tax offices refusing sensible repayment plans to preserve their bonuses, is a comforting surplus of €8 billion in the state's current account.
