Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second this motion and welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue. In an associated way, I commend the Minister for Justice and Equality on his intention to deal with the court poor box issue. It was a practice with no statutory footing and opaque rules and it had no place in our system of criminal justice.

I fully support this proposal which seems to have two main advantages. If done correctly, there will be a reduction in crime rates and recidivism and a reduction in custodial sentences for low level crime. It is rather staggering that on one day in November 2012, not one incidence of violent crime was reported in New York city. Many put this down to the establishment of community courts.

On a practical level, a local court where all the local services and authorities have an input would be a fantastic development. I will give one concrete example. Imagine a local court where the local authority and its planners are involved in and aware of the local geographic or urbanisation issues contributing to crime in a given area. There was an issue in a local estate in Galway recently where the local authority, after much pressure from local representatives, closed off certain passageways in an estate at night to prevent those potentially participating in low level crime from gathering. If the local authorities were aware, from participation in local community courts, that these issues were arising from their planning decisions, then it would allow them to future proof building and planning in a way to mitigate against anti-social behaviour.

I caution on a direct comparison between a potential system here and one already operating in New York, for instance. With due respect, American justice at what we would call District Court level is harsher than in most of mainland European countries. Incarceration is not the be-all and end-all of the criminal justice system here. We deal comparatively leniently with low level crime. I would hope the idea here is not so much having a more lenient sentencing regime but that we would have joined up thinking across the public service and community involvement.

I would have one caveat only with the proposal. Senators should be aware that a long-standing pilot project in Liverpool was closed. The Government in the UK was not satisfied that the moneys invested were yielding results. It costs considerable sums to establish and fund such a system. Proponents of the system in the UK freely admit that it requires a large amount of funding.

We should, therefore, ensure that the potential cost is weighed in the balance before deciding on this issue. We should insist on fully costed proposals as we do not have funds to throw away. I hope that any project - presumably, a pilot project at the start - will be subject to a very careful cost benefit analysis.

I support the proposal but I do not wish to see money being poured into the service annually without proper supervision, auditing and stringent cost benefit analysis.