Mr. Brendan Ryan:

The Courts Service will support the development of some form of early intervention model to deal with low-level adult offenders in Dublin city centre. This would cover those committing relatively minor offences in specific offence categories, including theft, public order, minor assault, obstruction and so forth. However, our view is that while the court might be at the centre of this initiative, the success of any community court, as has been proved worldwide, is highly dependent on the level of resources assigned to it from outside the criminal justice system. I am sorry to keep coming back to resources. Those community court systems deemed successful in addressing quality-of-life issues associated with offending are characterised by a high level of dedicated resources available across several supporting departments and agencies.

I would also mention that while noting the Oireachtas joint committee's suggestion that the implementation group should be chaired by a nominee of the Courts Service, we would respectfully suggest that the Courts Service may not be the best place to fulfil this role. The reason being is that a cross-departmental agency approach is required. We are unlikely to have the influence or muscle to ensure the level of commitment required from other Departments or agencies to bring this proposal to implementation stage. A feature of many community courts which have been deemed successful, for example, in Melbourne and Vancouver, has been the fact the initiative has been sponsored, led and promoted by a central government department. We have some experience of this in the drug treatment court and the commitment of other agencies is needed. The Courts Service and the court will provide a judge and a court registrar, but for this to be successful it requires the involvement of the other support services such as the Garda, the health service, the local authority and the local community as business will have to have an input in this. A very wide spectrum of people have to get involved in this. We only provide a judge who will make a decision and a registrar who will draw up that order, but the work is really done by other people, not by the Courts Service. However, we are supportive of it and there should be a report on this in a few weeks.