Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

Normally I prefer not to clear the House. I propose to share the remaining part of my time with my colleague, Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick, giving him five or six minutes.

When speaking previously on this Bill I made reference to the kind of offences which should come within the scope of this legislation. I refer, in particular, to a concern of mine regarding the level of offences against the person, what would be regarded as minor offences but which include intimidation in residential areas often carried out by young people who seem to have nothing else to do and who intimidate both other young people and older people. An order is imposed upon them under the relevant previous Act dealing with anti-social behaviour but such an order becomes a badge of honour for any youngster. He is deemed a hero and worthy of comment and capable of doing greater and worse things. That legislation is not working, it is a waste of time and has been abused. The people who allegedly suffered under its provisions are the victims of such behaviour because it carries on indefinitely. I hope that in the determination of the category of persons likely to have a community service order imposed them that such persons will be suitable to have such an order imposed upon them, that they will derive benefit from it and that there will not be repeat offending. If repeat offenders are given community service orders, one must ask if this is a waste of time. Such a policy may ease the pressure on prison spaces but if it is not achieving the purpose for which it was intended - being a deterrent - this will be a problem. I hope the Minister, in determining the regulations applicable to the Bill, will specify the grounds on which the court may decide to impose a community service order and to determine the suitability of the person on whom the order is to be served in order to ensure society does not suffer further and that the individual achieves some benefit from it by way of rehabilitation.

I note that section 4 refers to the conditions which must be met before a community service order may be imposed and this relates to what I have been saying. As regards the appropriateness of certain offenders for a community service order, I note statistics relating to prison inmates showed that in 2009 a total of 40% were imprisoned for offences against property, 21% for other offences, 17% for road traffic offences, 12% for other offences against the person such as assault, 9% for drug offences and 1% for sexual offences. The suitability of the client for inclusion in a community service order has to be carefully considered, otherwise it could become an offence to the person against whom the original offence was committed. There could be situations in which such a person could abuse the community service order by, as it were, sneering once again at the person or persons who were offended in the first place. I hope this aspect will be dealt with in the regulations.

I do not wish to labour the subject other than to say the issue of anti-social behaviour is not restricted to any particular area, any particular section of society or to any particular type of offence. A certain group of individuals who are in some cases old enough to have more sense intimidate others to such an extent as to drive them over the top, so to speak. Countless situations have been reported to Members in the past number of years in which individuals are at their wits end because of constant niggling anti-social behaviour which often results in the victim being driven out of the community to seek refuge elsewhere. This should not be the case. Society should be able to protect people from such behaviour. I hope the Bill will make it possible to identify such offenders and subject them to suitable retribution which does not cause further offence to the persons they have already offended.

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