Mr. Michael O'Driscoll:

That is a fantastic idea. That is exactly how I see it, this thing of waiting for six months to go to court for something really small and petty. If we have gardaí on the street - one of our big problems is that we do not have enough bodies on the street - we can call a garda for this small incident and if we can get one quickly, he or she can catch the person on the street. The garda can bring them somewhere to get dealt with in a very basic way rather than having to go through the whole justice system where there is a legal aid solicitor who has all the excuses for the judge as to why the person is shoplifting. They have issues with their family and all of that stuff. Nothing ever happens so it is a very basic situation in terms of punishment. They cannot get away with it and there has to be some punishment no matter how small the crime.