The Minister for Justice has expressed concern over the operation of the court poor box in cases where penalty points should be applied.
Charlie Flanagan described the practice as "inconsistent" as he responded to a question on promised legislation from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
Mr Martin raised last night's RTÉ Investigates programme - Law & Disorder - in the Dáil, which he said highlighted the loopholes in the road traffic acts.
Interactive Map: District-by-district breakdown of court orders
Minister Flanagan said he spoke to the Minister for Transport Shane Ross on the issue this morning.
He said both departments will "sit down at an early date" to ensure that a long awaited consolidation of the road traffic legislation.
The practice was found by the High Court in 2014 to be a circumvention of the law.
The High Court ruled that "the District Court enjoys no jurisdiction to impose an informal sanction such as accepting a donation to the poor box, as this would amount to an indirect circumvention" of the law.
But even after that High Court ruling, 843 penalty points cases were dealt with by poor box in 2015.
The number fell to nearly 258 in 2016 and 223 in the first nine months of this year, according to Courts Service figures supplied to Independent TD Tommy Broughan.
The RTÉ Investigates programme highlighted examples of the poor box being applied in the cases of two defendants who were before the court on charges, including dangerous driving.
In one case, a man before Dundalk District Court on 19 traffic-related charges had all charges struck out on payment of €5,000 to a charity.
Where the poor box is applied no conviction is recorded, so the defendant will not receive penalty points or a driving disqualification.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
In a statement issued prior to last night’s programme, a spokesperson for the Minister Ross criticised the statistics provided by the Courts Service that were used in the programme.
They showed that only 58% of drink drivers who came before a court were convicted. The percentage of successful convictions fell to 48% once the number of drink-driving summonses issued but not served were taken into account.
The spokesperson stated: "The statistics given, as provided by the Courts Service, which are the subject of the RTÉ Investigation programme, are per annum and therefore are totally misleading.
"They do not reflect the reality that such prosecutions often take longer than a calendar year from the time that they first enter the courts to the time that they complete that process."
It is not clear what statistics Minister Ross was referring to but the drink-driving figures used in the programme are not related to the length of time a prosecution takes.
Minister Ross’s spokesperson also claimed that: "The true figure is that approximately 85% of drink-driving cases that come before the courts result in convictions."
The figures referred to by Minister Ross are for cases that do get to court and are heard by a judge, but they do not include the figures for summonses not served by gardaí or the figures for cases struck out or dismissed for a variety of reasons.
A spokesperson for the Courts Service has confirmed to RTÉ Investigates that when the figures for summonses not served and cases dismissed or struck out the conviction rate drops to 48%.
