Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the introduction of this Bill to the House and commend Deputy Halligan on his preparation of it. My party and I welcome the spirit of this Bill and will be supporting its progress to Committee Stage. However should the Bill get to that Stage, Sinn Féin will seek to amend it in order to strengthen it further. I will speak further about this a little later in my contribution. Restorative justice is an approach to responding to criminal and other harmful behaviour that enables the perpetrator of a criminal or other harmful act to offer restitution or reparation to the victim or the victim’s community or both. It identifies crime or anti-social behaviour as an act against an individual or community rather than against the State.

Sinn Féin sees an increasingly important role for restorative justice in the justice system across the island because we believe that in a great many cases it is more socially effective than retributive justice as it results in higher victim satisfaction, a lower incidence of repeat offending and a greater chance of offender rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. In the meantime, we are committed to expanding and improving the use of restorative justice, including community restorative justice and community mediation programmes, both within and alongside the existing justice systems North and South.

Although we may agree loosely with the idea that those who commit offences of theft should pay back the costs of the goods they have stolen, the manner in which this Bill suggests that the money should be recouped is not something we could definitively support. Section 19 deals with attachment of earnings orders where an offender has failed to pay the sum of money in full by the set dates. Section 19(c) allows a court to make an attachment of earnings order to a person in receipt of a social welfare payment. This automatically raises questions. As Members know, social welfare payments are often calculated in regard to households. I and my party would worry that where an attachment order is made in respect of an offender, there is a chance that the partner or child of the offender will suffer unfairly due to the behaviour of his or her partner or parent. This is one area we would seek to amend should this Bill reach the next Stage. Of course, we will work constructively with the Deputy on that. There is also the worry that if one cuts far enough into someone’s salary or social welfare payment, one could leave him or her in a situation in which he or she could not survive financially, and this is another area of concern to us.

In order for this Bill to be fair, we would need to work to ensure that strict conditions are placed on attachment orders. We must also be mindful of the danger of placing an attachment order on someone who is already struggling to be an upstanding citizen and the possibility that, rather than being restorative, this could actually have the opposite effect, causing someone to become more detached from society. If both parties agree to such a mechanism then it is fair to call it restorative justice, but attaching an order for payment to someone's salary or social welfare payment who does not want to pay is certainly not what we would know as restorative justice.

In the North of Ireland restorative justice practices have come on in leaps and bounds, but here in the Twenty-six Counties we have much more to do. Although there some good examples across this State, we have much more work to do. Indeed, the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality is looking at this very issue. Although restorative justice can be very labour-intensive, it is nowhere near as costly as incarcerating people for non-violent crimes. It is time we started to give real consideration to alternative strategies in this State.

I reiterate my initial point that we support the passage of this Bill to Committee Stage. Should it get there, we will work closely with the Deputy to strengthen it and to take into account some of the concerns I have outlined in my contribution.

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