Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I presume the idea of restorative justice means restoring justice, but it must be very difficult to restore justice in the majority of situations. I am not a big fan of imprisonment; I do not see many benefits in it. There are better ways to deal with offenders than throwing them in prison. Not only do they not learn very much but sometimes they seem to come out with more problems. We have seen figures for the numbers of offenders who have spent time in prison and reoffended. They are frightening and should put us off throwing them into prison in the first place.

The Criminal Justice Alliance in the United Kingdom defines restorative justice as a process in which everyone involved comes together to talk about impact of a crime and what needs to happen to repair the harm caused. It can take place at any stage in the criminal justice system, and outside it, and has clear benefits, including high victim satisfaction rates, reductions in the levels of reoffending and cost savings for the criminal justice system. I do not agree with the idea that the scheme should be restricted solely to financial reparation. The vast majority of those who commit crimes could probably not afford to pay back financially for the damage they cause because most of them have no money as most of them come from deprived backgrounds. If we seriously want to challenge crime, we must engage more proactively in tackling poverty and inequality.

Sadly, inequality is growing rather than decreasing. The austerity measures certainly have not helped.

No one likes to be robbed. I can remember being robbed 25 times in one 12 month period on my building sites. I do not believe any of the guys who robbed the stuff were very well off and getting money back from them would have been fairly challenging. It would not have given me any satisfaction to see them thrown in prison. I can remember a brand new mini-digger being burned to a cinder one night and a JCB being burned another night. Needless to say, I was not very pleased with the guys who did it even though I did not see them. I had a fair idea that their being thrown in jail would not give me any benefit either. I would have liked to have met and had a chat with them. I would also have liked to have got them to do some work for me free of charge. That would have been good.

I am a great believer in community service. I argued with the right honourable Minister, Deputy Shatter, during the debate on the Fines Bill, that we should be using community service much more. It is a better idea than attaching orders or throwing people in prison.

Another issue that springs to mind is that I had a son thrown out of a secondary school having been accused of doing something he did not do. The Sunday Independent flashed the story all over the front page but it forgot to print the story when his appeal was upheld and he got back into the school. I do not know how that slipped its mind. It was amazing.

The idea of throwing kids out of school for one thing or another is counter-productive. If kids are found guilty of doing something they should not have done, keeping them back at the end of the school and making them do some physical work for a few hours every evening for a considerable length of time, depending on the offence involved, would make much more sense than throwing them out of school. It would also be more productive.

I am certainly in favour of the person who commits the crime engaging with his or her victim. That can be educational for both sides and both can learn from it. It is something we should put energy into and try to make happen more.

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