Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Is cosúil nach bhfuair sí mórán deis ar an Guinness glas ag an deireadh seachtaine. Tá míle fáilte roimpi agus í linn arís. Ba mhaith liom tréaslú leis an Seanadóir Conway a chur an rún seo síos. Cuireann sé croí agus anam i ngach rud a dhéanann sé sa Teach seo. Is maith an aghaidh air an obair atá déanta ar an rún seo aige.

I am happy to take this opportunity to speak in the debate and I commend the Fine Gael motion and Senator Conway on putting it forward. I and the Sinn Féin Party are happy to support the motion. Sinn Féin has long been an advocate of the restorative justice approach. It is my view that the benefits of this approach, as it has been applied in the North, remain clear for all to see. I am very pleased this is an idea which is gaining more and more political support throughout the island.

I understand that last October saw a presentation given by the two main umbrella groups that are responsible for restorative justice in the North - Community Restorative Justice Ireland and Northern Ireland Alternatives - to the Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and that they gave an insightful and evidence-based account of the effects of such an approach. These are organisations which are heavily embedded in their communities and also partner with housing, health and social affairs authorities in their work.

The key point of the approach and the philosophy is that the focus is on rehabilitation of offenders and ensuring justice is done while, at the same time, not being punitive and ensuring that the offender can be in a position to add to their community and repay their debt to the same community. According to Community Restorative Justice Ireland, the practice is based on eight key principles which underpin its whole philosophy and approach, namely, participation, interconnectedness, honesty, humility, respect, accountability, hope and empowerment. Where such an approach can be used, we should seek to make use of such a humane approach.

I noticed with interest the Minister, Deputy Shatter's response to a question tabled by my colleague, Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, on 24 October last. Indicating his support for the scheme, he made an interesting point regarding the place of victims within such a system. He said:

...it is interesting that restorative justice essentially requires offenders to speak for themselves from start to finish whereas if one brings them into a court system, apart from saying "guilty" or "got guilty", the offender may say nothing at all in court, and certainly is not emotionally engaged necessarily in an exchange where he perceives the person against whom the offence was committed as truly a victim of that offence. No doubt offenders find the restorative justice process emotionally demanding and tough and it gives them an opportunity to see the victim as a person and to say "Sorry" to him. There is really no chance of doing that in a court process. It happens only occasionally.

This is an important point and I agree there is a clear philosophy there which encourages seeking forgiveness and so on.

As for its efficacy, the facts speak for themselves. The recidivism rates with programme participants were 8% to 9% within a year of completion of the programme compared to 50% to 60% for those offenders incarcerated in mainstream prisons. In many ways, this is not surprising as putting people in prisons, particularly where they are overcrowded and the conditions are poor, can be damaging and can even add to the possibility of recidivism. This is particularly the case among younger people.

This is an also an approach which makes economic sense. As we all know, incarceration is extremely expensive, so there are obvious savings which will accrue if the scheme is successful. Simply put, if we can invest in prevention rather than cure, we would save a great deal of money for the taxpayer over the medium to long term. Of course, there are also positive stories for the South and, as the motion notes, the work of the Nenagh Community Reparation Project, the Restorative Justice Services and Le Chéile Restorative Justice Project deserve great commendation.

I might further make the point that schemes such as these should form part of a wider, more community-focused reorientation of justice. Clearly, a scheme such as community restorative justice can only work in partnership with the local community. However, I believe that idea of partnership should be applied right across the board. Local authorities and local gardaí, in conjunction with tenants committees, residents associations and other community stakeholders, are all responsible. Issues concerning justice and safety in a community should be responded to with public meetings on an estate by estate, development by development or even street by street basis. We also believe there would be a value in the drawing up of a collective "good community" agreement.

The Minister will know we have long called for the full roll-out of the joint policing committees, JPCs, across the State and for greater resourcing of designated community gardaí, who are among the most effective tools available to the force in tackling antisocial behaviour, particularly locally. This was brought home to me last Friday at a meeting in Galway about the issue of the increase in burglaries, about which people are very concerned. The main issue coming from the people in the audience was that they want to see gardaí on the streets.

It is a very small thing. It is community policing. Great praise was given to the community police on the streets in Galway city.

Such an approach would fit well with the approach we are discussing with restorative justice. The philosophy inherent in that approach is that not only are there rights that accrue to victims and communities but consequently there are obligations on the victim and community. The offender has an obligation, as the CRJI puts it, to make things right as much as possible and to be an active participant in addressing their own needs and their obligations to victims as restitution takes priority over other sanctions and obligations to the community. Likewise, the community has a responsibility to support and help victims of crime and antisocial behaviour to meet their needs. It has a responsibility for the welfare of its members and the social conditions and relationships which promote crime and antisocial behaviour and community peace and other obligations in a similar vein such as reintegration. Clearly, this philosophy applies to a wider context and we should consider how this can be rolled out across the board and include statutory authorities and the gardaí.

Something like this is not just an issue for the Department of Justice and Equality but is an issue for all Government Departments. Something that would have come forward again on Friday was that the general economic climate is encouraging crime in a number of areas. We have also seen societal disadvantage in areas that would have been measured under the Trutz Haase deprivation index. The areas were still deprived relatively speaking even though money was put into them over the years. Equality of access to services and education was an issue there. It is important for all Departments to put the community first and keep the levels of funding available to community projects, drugs task forces, family resource centres and drug rehabilitation as high as possible.

Even though the Minister for Justice and Equality did much work in opposition on these issues, the date of November 2015 seems a long way off - two and a half years. Could that date be brought forward because this is the type of Bill we would all welcome sooner rather than later?