Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

"Exhausted" is a good word for this week. Together with other colleagues, I welcome the opportunity to contribute briefly to this debate. I compliment Deputy Jim O'Keeffe, my esteemed colleague on the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights for his work in this area. I was not going to get involved in the banter that took place between my Limerick and Dublin colleagues earlier, but as a proud Dubliner I will always speak up for the Dublin viewpoint. As Deputy Power mentioned Limerick, I will refer to Tallaght for a second, but only because in any debate like this I would wish to state what has been achieved there. One of the things we are happy about in Tallaght is the restorative justice programme, which has a sister programme in Tipperary. I am sure Deputy Hoctor will speak about that later. The Minister visited our community a couple of weeks ago for the annual report of the restorative justice programme in Tallaght, which is making huge progress. As Tallaght and Nenagh have shown the way, this programme can be rolled out in the rest of the country. That should be done.

I am sympathetic to the Bill's intent but, like other colleagues, I believe we should await the outcome of the steering committee's work before considering legislation. We need information on sentencing and I suspect that some of the controversy which erupts from to time to time may be defused if we have recourse to a proper sentencing database. As we are discovering, sentencing is a complex issue. Each case is different with variable factors to be taken into account. While no two cases are the same, that is not to say that judges cannot make mistakes or that sentencing may not be consistent. For all these reasons we need more information on this vital function of the courts.

I support the decision of the board of the Courts Service to establish a steering committee to plan for and provide a system of information on sentencing. I also welcome the committee's decision to establish a pilot project in the Dublin Circuit Court. Information is needed if we are to consider the issue meaningfully. We need to get beyond headlines. Once we have information we can consider the rights and wrongs of mandatory sentencing or sentencing guidelines. The real question is whether we should have statutory sentencing guidelines.

As the Minister has stated, the complex question of sentencing policy was addressed at length by the Law Reform Commission, which specifically recommended against the introduction of statutory sentencing guidelines. The commission has stated that statutory guidelines would involve undue interference in the independence of the Judiciary. The decision on what kind of sentencing to impose is a judicial determination. Apart from exceptional circumstances, I am of the view that the Oireachtas should be cautious in prescribing mandatory sentencing. I generally concur with the thinking behind the recommendations on statutory guidelines. The point was made in the commission's report that the more detailed the requirements of any statutory sentencing procedure, the more likely it was that mistakes would arise, leaving sentences open to challenge on technical grounds only.

Subsequently, the working group on the jurisdiction of the courts found that there was a need for some system of objective guidance on sentencing for judges at all levels. One option proposed by the working group would be to accommodate within the present system the more effective dissemination of decisions which are regarded as being authoritative in nature, particularly decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeal. These benchmark cases would at the same time assist trial judges and enable the public to understand more clearly the principles behind sentencing decisions.

I was interested to hear that the Courts Service and the Supreme Court Judiciary are currently operating a pilot database of judgments of the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeal, which has been launched on the Courts Service website with High Court judgments.

I concur with the Minister in that we should await the outcome of the steering committee's work. Future debate will be the richer for doing so. I look forward to voting for the Government amendment but I compliment Deputy O'Keeffe.

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