Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I am happy to have the opportunity to address the Private Members' Bill before the House. With my colleagues, I thank and commend Deputy Jim O'Keeffe for bringing this issue before us. Like Deputy O'Connor, I am a firm believer in the system of restorative justice. At a later stage, Deputy O'Keeffe is to bring before the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights a report on the implementation of restorative justice in the Nenagh and Tallaght projects, as well as the experience abroad. When that report is made available we may have a different view of the Private Members' proposal before us. While I can see merits in what Deputy O'Keeffe is attempting to do with this measure, I can also see difficulties, which have no doubt already been outlined by my colleagues.

A genuine effort has been made in the Bill to create a comprehensive register of sentences so that sentencing norms can be assessed. The measure also seeks to introduce greater transparency in the sentencing process. How we go about doing that is the key issue. Deputy O'Keeffe's proposal would appear to be difficult to implement and would entail a major undertaking for the Courts Service. It would not be practical even to record sentencing patterns on a weekly basis, which the Bill recommends. The complexity of the process would be seen as a vast drain on staff and resources. The timing is also a difficult aspect because each case is different.

I commend the Deputy on what he is attempting to do but it would be difficult to implement in practical terms. The level of detail required with the labour intensity go far beyond what is needed. The proposal recommends that all details of previous sentences of offenders would be brought before the courts and that mitigating factors would be taken into consideration. All that data would have to be made available to the Courts Service staff who do not currently have it, although it is available to the Garda and the Irish Prison Service. It would bring about a big change in the level of staff and the nature of their work but how fruitful would that be at the end of the day? While we should seriously examine what is proposed, we must also be practical about it.

In some ways the proposal is premature and I am surprised the Deputy has brought it before the House in view of the work being undertaken by a steering committee established by the board of the Courts Service in October 2004. That steering committee was set up to plan and provide for a system of information on sentencing. The board's initiative is designed to provide some systemic form of information as a reference point for judges. That work is under way and will soon be put into practice in the Dublin District Court for a six-week period, based on findings in New South Wales and Scotland. We have a lot to learn from other jurisdictions about the operation of justice, particularly the innovative steps that have been taken in Australia.

New South Wales has a judicial commission whose major function is to assist courts in achieving consistency of approach in the sentencing of offenders. The commission's objectives in this area are to reduce unjustified disparities in sentences imposed by the courts, to improve sentencing efficiency generally and to reduce the number of appeals against sentences thereby releasing valuable resources which can be redeployed to reduce court delays. We should debate the issue of court delays on another occasion.

See this speech in context