Arhlone Live!Pay your fine, but,
NO POINTS DEDUCTED, !!
Read on :-
This is how the points get added to your licence:
If you get a fixed penalty notice through the post which also carries
penalty points the computer system first sends you a demand for the
cash.
When you have paid, it then sends a demand to return your licence for
endorsement.
It cannot handle the licence endorsement and the payment at the same
time, and it cannot process the points part of the system until the
financial section is complete.
If you overpay the fixed penalty, it must issue and send a refund
cheque for the overpayment.
Therefore, overpay the fixed penalty by sending a cheque for the full
amount plus €1.
The computer will then automatically generate a refund cheque for the
over-payment and send it to you.
**** Do not cash this refund cheque – DUMP IT.
The system then remains ‘open’ and cannot generate the ‘send your
licence for endorsement’ demand part of the program.
It does, however, record your payment of the fixed penalty, so it does
not trigger the ‘follow-up unpaid fine’ stage.
As there is no human intervention, the system will leave you alone,
since it has got your money, which is the primary objective!
On opening my mailbox today, I found the message above sent to me by a pal. It purports to help you avoid penalty points on an Irish driving license. I met up with this same pal later and inquired as to the origin of the message and it’s veracity. He says the person who sent it to him knows someone on “the inside” and leaked this operational flaw in the points assessment system.
Knowing a little about process logic it’s easy to think that such a situation might occur - it’s sort of plausible and of course the fact that it’s a Government ICT system makes it all the more credible!
Needless to say I’m not in any hurry to put it to the test but would welcome your thoughts and comments on it. Maybe we need an Irish version of Snopes 
