Mr. David Brennan:

I am thankful for this opportunity to speak here today. In business, perception is reality. In reality, here in Dublin we have had considerable media coverage of quality of life and anti-social crime in the city centre. The perception of the streets of Dublin is not what it should be. Low level offences such as vandalism, anti-social behaviour, being drunk in public, criminal damage, drug use and drug dealing, assault, threatening and abusive behaviour and theft erode the quality of life for the inhabitants of our city. This creates an atmosphere in which serious crime flourishes. We have a situation where we continually have drug-addicted people on the streets of Dublin. These unfortunate individuals, in the main, no longer take any interest in society at large and behave in a manner that disturbs and intimidates many passing citizens, not to mention tourists. Workers and shoppers alike pass comment regularly on how unpleasant this makes the city centre.

We have one of the safest capital cities in the world. This is borne out by the actual crime statistics. The perception, however, is that our city is violent, which is not based on the facts.

The Dublin City Business Association, DCBA, is a not-for-profit voluntary association which has worked tirelessly for just under 40 years for the restoration, development and promotion of Dublin City. The majority of business people in Dublin will spend a large portion of their lives within the city centre. The DCBA engages daily with the authorities of the city, Dublin City Council and An Garda Síochána. We interact on the streets of Dublin with our members and are involved with many committees that concern themselves with the good running of the city.

In 2004, the DCBA set about creating a new entity for Dublin, namely, the Dublin business improvement district structure. On our site visits to the USA we took a keen interest in the concept of community courts. I have been asked why a business organisation would take the considerable time and effort in promoting the community courts concept. The DCBA as a business organisation accepts its moral responsibility to partake in the good governance of Dublin. The aim of the association has not changed in that we seek a system of law that manages the individual and not the process. We wish to see community courts established in the State that would have problem solving judges and that would be problem solving courts that work more closely with the community, that deliver and develop a collaborative problem solving approach to quality-of-life offences such as shoplifting, vandalism, street level drug possession, and so on, that provide quick acting justice and visible justice in the area where the crime took place, that can be seen by the community at large to be working, that are well planned, well thought-out and well researched, and that actively work to guide and assist defendants back into a meaningful role for them in society.

In regard to those who have substance abuse problems and many family and personal problems, we look for a court that actively works to guide and assist these people to deal with their problems and the underlying reasons for re-offending. The goal of community courts is to address the multiple problems and needs that contribute to anti-social behaviour. Both criminal justice officials and the community share a deep frustration about the criminal courts processing low level offences and the high level of repeat offenders. The community courts, through their structure, could address offences such as those I mentioned.

Some years ago, in 2001, we had a far-seeing initiative with the setting up of a drug court in Dublin. Following the work done by the drug court, the DCBA would see the community courts as a natural progression in dealing with low level offences and anti-social behaviour on our streets.

The city requires a perception that encourages citizens and businesses to grow and prosper. We need active change on the streets. Tourism is vital as it brings new, extra money to the State. The offering of our city and the reality of our streets impinges directly on tourists and on their essential wish to revisit Ireland. Thankfully, we had an increase of 7.2% last year in the number of tourists coming to Ireland. While that is great news, we need to build strong annual increases in the tourism sector to bring new money into our city. Community courts are a very real tool to give us a better city with better streetscapes. This will affect the ordinary person in the street going about his or her daily life. It will improve the environment of the streets which in turn will engender increased and improved business and this will bring jobs to our city.

Every capital city has similar problems to the ones we have in Dublin. The DCBA seeks to improve the way we deal with quality-of-life crimes. We support the view that minor crimes should not necessarily draw a defendant into the majesty of the adversarial criminal justice system. We believe a speedy system that is firm with low level repeat offenders but seeks to help the individual promises much to our society. As Albert Einstein said, we cannot solve the problems of today using the same thoughts that created the problem in the first place. Community courts have been established in jurisdictions other than the USA, where the initiative started in 1993, for more than ten years. They have grown, have been developed and have adjusted to the need in the society in which they operate.

The DCBA asks that we in Dublin would look at a system that has successfully reduced crime in countries that operate community courts, as this would be of great importance. Community courts have substantially reduced the rate of re-offending. While reducing the crime, it has also helped defendants regain parts of their lives. These two factors, over time, will benefit our society. While we believe it may help the State in fiscal terms, we strongly believe it will help the agencies of the State that deal with these problems to operate more effectively.

In a court where the defendant pleads guilty the resources of the court are put to better and more practical use. The citizens see swift justice at work and the community service working in their area. The services of the State that deal with abuse and housing see their resources employed to better effect and more returns with positive results for their spend. If community courts are planned and implemented properly, I believe there is a win-win for all - a win for the citizen going about his or her affairs in our capital, a win for business that will see job potential and new opportunities, a win for those who have lost control of their lives, and a win for the Exchequer in that the systems will operate better. We need change and we in the DCBA believe that setting up a community courts system in Dublin will bring about that change. As George Bernard Shaw said, some people say, "Why", and I say: "Why not?"