AROUND £6.5 million in court fines and traffic penalties is unlikely to ever be recovered, a report has found.
The report by the assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hit out at the "unacceptable" way that penalties and fines have been managed.
The Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS) is the body responsible for collecting fines imposed by the courts, police and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. The PAC report found that fines of around £19m still have not been paid, including ones totalling £6.5m which are unlikely to be paid.
And more than 6,600 paper warrants linked to fines worth £1.1m have gone missing.
PAC chairman, Sinn Féin assembly member Michaela Boyle, said: "The way that financial penalties and fines have been managed is unacceptable."
The report found that the Department of Justice has not set up a "joined up approach" to fine collection. The PAC recommended that the NICTS should see how a person can pay the fine, before it is imposed.