Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The number of people jailed for the non-payment of fines has increased by 82% which the Minister will agree is nothing short of substantial and alarming. We as legislators must delve into this. I strongly suspect this increase is related to the economic climate. Considering the small financial quantities of some fines, why would someone bother going to jail if they had the wherewithal to pay them?

There may be another view on that issue, but it probably relates to working class people who find themselves in a bad place and if they do not have the money, they find themselves in a place where they should not be. That is something legislators should address.

We should also be concerned that 60% of all District Court cases involve road traffic offences. It is interesting that the Courts Service has called for fines for these offences to be included in road taxes. I do not know what the Minister's view on this is, but it should be explored. District Courts administer justice, yet 60% of the work relates to road traffic offences. Surely there must be another way to deal with this issue rather than jamming up court proceedings.

The issue of sentencing aggravates all citizens of the State, particularly when cases arise where the ordinary man or woman on the street recognises that there is an injustice and nowhere does it agitate people more than in the case of sentencing for sexual crimes, which are violent crimes against women. There is a difficulty with section 6 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 which allows for compensation to be paid. Without citing recent cases with which we are familiar, this raises the question that if somebody has money and engages in this kind of dreadful act, he can buy himself out of the crime. Most citizens of the State would not agree to this, but we inherited a justice system which is not our own and we have to deal with it as it is.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising these important issues. As he will appreciate, judges are independent in the matter of sentencing, as in others concerning the exercise of judicial functions, subject only to the Constitution and the law. In accordance with this principle, the role of the Oireachtas has been to specify in law a maximum penalty and a court, having considered all of the circumstances of a case, imposes an appropriate penalty up to that maximum. The court is required to impose a sentence which is proportionate not only to the crime but also to the individual offender, in that process identifying where in the sentencing range the particular case should lie and then applying any mitigating factor which may be present.

From time to time, issues arise with consistency in sentencing and the sentences imposed in high profile or particularly sensitive cases. As Minister for Justice and Equality, I cannot enter public discourse on individual cases. It is ultimately for the judge to impose sentence taking into account all relevant factors. However, I draw attention to an important safeguard, the power of the Director of Public Prosecutions to apply to the Court of Criminal Appeal to review a sentence she regards as unduly lenient.

The Law Reform Commission has recently published a report on mandatory sentencing. Separately, I have established a strategic review group to consider penal policy, including sentencing policing. I expect the group to report later this year and intend to publish its report. The group will take account of the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission's report in its deliberations and both reports will be considered in due course.

I turn to the separate but related issue raised by the Deputy, that of fines. Fines are the most commonly imposed sentence in the courts and I am pleased to say that subject to the approval of the Government, the fines (payment and recovery) Bill will be published next week. The overall objective of the Bill is one that I am sure is shared by the Deputy and most in this House. That objective is to reduce and, to the greatest extent possible, eliminate the need for judges to commit anyone to prison for the non-payment of fines. Last year around 8,300 people were sent to prison for the non-payment of fines. They comprised the vast majority of those sentenced to short sentences by the courts and committed to prisons in 2012. The resources expended by all involved in the justice system is staggering, from the Judiciary to the Garda Síochána to the Courts Service to the prisons, at a time when resources are at a premium. Prison is not the answer to the non-payment of a fine, except in exceptional cases.

None of this is to say I am sanguine about the non-payment of fines. For the justice system to work, it must have the capacity to detect crime, prosecute offenders and, where they are convicted by the courts, ensure compliance with whatever sanction the courts impose. Where fines are concerned, this means collecting the fine. It is regrettably the case that a significant minority of around 30% of fines are not paid. The fines (payment and recovery) Bill seeks to address this issue in a number of ways that avoid the need to send defaulters to prison. It provides that everyone can pay a fine by instalments over 12 months and, where a person is in default, an attachment order may be made requiring his or her employer to collect the fine and pay it over to the courts. The Bill also provides that community service orders may be imposed in all cases of non-payment.

I am confident that the proposals contained in the coming Bill will achieve a significant reduction in the committal to prison for the non-payment of fines, while protecting the principle that sentences imposed by the courts must be served. Where this involves a fine, the fines payment and recovery system will strive to collect the fine either from the person's income or assets and, failing this, will impose community service on the person.

I note that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recently suggested that where road traffic tickets were issued and not paid, that a system might be put in place to provide for the recovery of outstanding payments through road tax. This is an issue I intend to raise with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar, within whose remit the Road Traffic Acts fall, with a view to seeing if a system in this area be considered and put in place. I am conscious that circumstances may arise where fixed ticket charges are issued by mistake, issued to the wrong person or someone who does not own the vehicle, or there may be extenuating circumstances. It is a more complex issue than may otherwise have been assumed, as there are many instances where proceedings may not be appropriate in respect of road traffic matters and if all tickets issued automatically attached to someone's annual road tax, justice could be done. It is a very interesting proposal to which I am giving some consideration, following discussions with the Minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar.

Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Reforming the law is a tedious and slow business, but I must acknowledge that in the short period he has been in office, it looks as if the Minister might prove to be the most reforming justice Minister in the history of the State. That is to be welcomed because the legal process needs to be changed in the modern world. We need to tackle the perception which I consider to be true that the law is in place for the better-off, not the ordinary person. I am particularly interested in the system that operates in England and Wales, in which the Sentencing Council is made up of eight judges who represent all courts and six lay people with specialist knowledge. They have the role of promoting consistency in sentencing and informing the public about the factors that are taken into account by judges in formulating sentences.

I agree with the Minister that judges have to retain discretion. I do not think the law would work without a separation between legislators and judges.

The sentencing council for England and Wales has drawn up guidelines for sentencing which outline all the factors to be taken into account when judges pass a sentence. That is a radical initiative. The guidelines are contained on a single page which judges fill out at the time of the court case and forward to the sentencing council for analysis and use in the promotion of consistency. All of us want consistency in the application of the law. I referred earlier to rape cases in which people believe they can buy their way out of sentences and the thorny issue of corporate misdemeanours and white collar crime, which we have failed to address in this country.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Maloney for raising these important issues, which effectively go to the heart of our penal system and our criminal justice system. They are of interest to the public at large and have great importance to legislators on all sides of this House. It is important they remain in the spotlight and that we continue to reflect on how our criminal justice system works. I hope I have made the position clear in regard to sentencing and I look forward to receiving the report of the penal policy review group in due course.

Within the overall parameters of judicial independence, we need to ensure sentencing is coherent and consistent. Above all, confidence in the system requires that the public believe the sentence is commensurate with the crime. In many cases a sense that it is not commensurate is based on an incomplete picture. The factors taken into account by the judges are not always known to the public and, indeed, are not always reported. A more transparent system that ensures people understand the process and the factors taken into account in sentencing would help and, as I noted earlier, I intend that the Law Reform Commission report will feed into the work of the penal policy review group. I assure the Deputy I am open to any reform that improves the system.

With regard to the issue of sentencing, the Judiciary has done some work in this area. One of the items of legislation standing in line for completion is the judicial council Bill. When the Bill finally comes before the House and is enacted, I hope the judicial council might have regard for the development by the Judiciary of sentencing guidelines to assist judges in sentencing and consistency of sentencing. However, we must always remember when a judge exercises discretion in a particular case that background circumstances can substantially differentiate what may appear on the surface to be two similar cases. This is not always understood.

In regard to fines, we are genuinely on the cusp of an historic reform of the fines system that will make imprisonment for the non-payment of fines the exception rather than the rule. These are important reforms to which the Government committed in the programme for Government and it is my hope that the fines payment and recovery Bill, which is fully drafted and which I hope will be before the Cabinet next week, will be published within the next ten days. It is my objective, with the agreement of the House, that it will be enacted by Christmas and that the new regime will be in place in early 2014. The days of automatically sending those who either cannot or will not pay a fine to prison will be at an end. It is important that those who can afford to pay their fines but fail to do so understand there are consequences for such actions. These consequences may include supervised community service if circumstances are such that an attachment of earnings order may not be appropriate. This is a reform that I hope will be widely welcomed. It will make a significant difference and I look forward to a debate on that Bill taking place in the House shortly after we return from the summer vacation.