Batt O'Keeffe (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Jim O'Keeffe for raising an interesting debate. The aim of the Bill is to shed more light on the issue of sentencing and provide a database which would be useful to the Judiciary and policy makers in the criminal justice area. We on this side of the House generally share this aim. The problem we see with the proposed Bill is that, first, it is anticipating an area of work on which an expert committee of the Courts Service is sitting and, second, many of its detailed proposals would be administratively difficult to implement or are impractical.

It is simply not enough to record new data about sentencing. If such data is to be useful, collection must be carefully planned. It must be decided what are the most salient issues on which information needs to be collected and how such information should be processed to produce useful data. I expect that the Courts Service committee examining this issue will address these matters and come forward with workable proposals.

Matters are not as simple as the Deputies on the other side of the House might suggest. Tens of thousands of cases pass through our courts every year. Many cases are appealed to higher courts resulting in sentences given in the original court being changed. All these issues must be addressed in compiling sentencing data. As pointed out by my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, the information required under this Bill would be very difficult for the Courts Service to collect and maintain. Even though the Courts Service has invested heavily in modern information technology systems, its nationwide computer system, the criminal case tracking system, does not contain anything like the level of detail required in the Bill.

There is no doubt that sentencing is a complex matter and that many variable factors are taken into account in each case. To attempt to address this issue, the board of the Courts Service has established a steering committee to plan for and provide a system of information on sentencing. The high level membership of the committee, which is chaired by Mrs. Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme Court, shows the seriousness with which the Courts Service takes this issue.

The committee will establish a pilot project in the Circuit Court in Dublin which will collect and collate information on sentencing outcomes in cases on indictment in designated courts in accordance with criteria specified by the committee. It will be interesting to see if the committee recommends some type of sentencing information system for our courts in due course.

The Courts and Court Officers Act 1995 enables the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to provide funds for judicial training courses arranged by the Judiciary and, in this regard, funds are made available to the Judicial Studies Institute which was established by the Chief Justice for the purposes of judicial training. A sum of €483,000 was made available for 2006 and I understand that the issue of sentencing has been examined by the institute in the context of its training programme.

Section 36 of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961 provides for meetings of District Court judges to discuss, inter alia, the avoidance of undue divergence in the exercise of the jurisdiction of the court and the general level of fines and penalties. While there is no similar statutory provision in the case of other courts, I understand they hold similar meetings.

As regards seeking consistency in sentencing generally, this is, I understand, a matter to which courts at all levels have given considerable attention over recent years. There is, in fact, a great deal of consistency in sentencing and discussions which arise concerning inconsistency relate to a relatively small proportion of cases, often inaccurately. Nonetheless, inconsistency arises from time to time and it is a problem which faces every legal system.

It is worth mentioning again that the complex question of sentencing policy was addressed at length by the Law Reform Commission. The commission specifically recommended against the introduction of statutory sentencing guidelines in a report published in 1996. On the commission's recommendation against the introduction of statutory sentencing guidelines, it is fair to say that statutory guidelines would involve an undue interference in the independence of the Judiciary.

The decision on what kind of sentence to impose is a judicial determination and, save only in exceptional circumstances, it is the Minister's view that the Oireachtas should be cautious in prescribing mandatory sentences. After all, 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.

While the working group on the jurisdiction of the courts only touched on the issue of sentencing, it found that there was a need for some system of objective guidance for sentencing at all levels. One option proposed by the working group could be accommodated within the present system, namely, the more effective dissemination of decisions which are regarded as being authoritative in nature, especially 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.

There have been attempts by Fine Gael to link the Private Members' Bill to the issues arising from the recent decision of the Supreme Court on the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935. This, I suggest, is merely political opportunism. These two issues have nothing to do with each other. It is disingenuous to link them. I have heard no arguments from the Opposition which would convince me that this Bill should not be opposed at this time.

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