Motorists may be about to get a break from constantly looking over their shoulder for fear that a warden is about to pounce and slap them with a fine.

A reform of the local enforcement system, about to be implemented, will be placing more emphasis on driver education and well as introduce warnings rather than fines for first-time offenders.

Moreover, local councils will no longer have such a big incentive to pressure wardens into dishing out fines since the income generated will no longer be going straight into the councils' coffers. Instead, the money will be put in a centralised fund administered by the five regional committees to be set up next month.

According to Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said, this should stop local councils from putting pressure on wardens to dish out as many fines as possible, which, he said, "some" councils did.

Asked whether wardens were given quotas, Dr Said told The Times that although he did not have any proof of this, some wardens had reported being told the number of fines they had to hand down.

Every year wardens rake in €9.5 million worth of fines, more than double the cost of running the local enforcement system, leaving some €3 million profit for the councils. Each warden costs a council between €22 and €25 an hour.

The government is hoping to cut costs through better management of the system but also to reduce the number of fines and instead put an emphasis on education.

"The focus should be on education to remove the need for fines. This is not about making money but ensuring that people observe the laws and that we have better and safer communities," the parliamentary secretary said during a press conference.

He said a number of local councils had failed to understand how the system should be operated and instead used it as a way to make money. Making profit, he explained, was not the aim of the system.

"We have to use this money to give something back to the community."

The 39-point reform will start being introduced this week through the setting up of a management committee to oversee the operational aspects of the system.

Another aspect of the reform is that wardens can be removed by a board of discipline. Although he said not all wardens were doing a poor job, Mr Said admitted that some were not carrying out their duties properly.

"The biggest complaint is about their attitude, the way they speak to people."

The reform will include better working conditions to ensure that the best people for the job are recruited. Warden companies complain that the negative reputation that wardens have is leading to problems in recruitment.

"We need to change this bad perception or wardens will never be accepted," he said, adding there was a shortage of trained wardens.

Wardens will be given additional training which, according to Dr Said, should allow them to better evaluate situations. "If somebody stopped a car for a minute to grab something from a shop, maybe he should be talked to rather than given a fine," he said.

In fact, the reform will introduce a system of warnings for first-time offenders while at the same time increase the fine for repeat offences.

Wardens will have increased responsibilities that will include animal welfare, the management of construction sites and littering offences, among others.

The parliamentary secretary said that eventually the concept of community work should be introduced, instead of payment of fines.

Local enforcement reform

• Tribunal sittings will be held after 5 p.m. so that people will not have to miss a day's work to appeal a fine.

• People will be able to pay fines on the spot through a debit or credit card.

• A special tribunal is expected to be set up to take care of offences related to school absenteeism. Income from fines will go towards special education programmes.

• More wardens will be deployed near areas where children and young people congregate.

• Each local council will have an eco-warden assigned to it, whose job will be solely focused on environment-related contraventions and ensure that cleaning work in the locality is done properly.

• Wardens' PDAs will include a camera so that they can take photos to be used as evidence.