Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 496: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the progress made in regard to the commitment given in the Programme for Government to provide for the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against lenient sentences in the District Court and allow the DPP to make submissions at sentencing stage. [19324/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The commitments in the Programme for Government 2007-12 to which the question refers are under consideration. The question of giving the DPP the power to seek a review of unduly lenient sentences handed down in the District Court was examined by the Law Reform Commission in its report on prosecution appeals and pre-trial hearings (LRC 81-2006). The LRC decided that in principle such sentences should be subject to review. However, the LRC felt that more information was required on sentencing practices in the District Court before giving the DPP such a power. This information deficit is being addressed by the steering committee established by the Courts Service Board to plan for and provide information on sentencing.

The committee, under the chair of Mrs. Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme Court has initiated a project, known as the Irish Sentencing Information System. The project involves an examination of the feasibility of providing a computerised information system on sentences and other penalties imposed for criminal offences. This will assist judges when considering the sentence to be imposed in an individual case. The objective of a sentencing information system is to enable a judge, by entering relevant criteria, to access information about the range of sentences and other penalties imposed for particular types of offence in previous cases. The Committee established a pilot project in June 2006 in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. A further pilot commenced in Cork Circuit Court last month. An appropriate IT system has been developed incorporating a database where the information collected is electronically stored for subsequent retrieval and searching. It is expected that the outcome of this initiative will prepare the ground for the implementation of this commitment in the Programme for Government.

The issue of prosecution submissions at the sentencing stage was examined by the Balance in the Criminal Law Review Group. At present there is no statute regulating the right of the prosecution to make such submissions. The Deputy will be aware that the DPP's Guidelines for Prosecutors give some direction in this regard, as do the codes of conduct of the Bar and the Law Society. In light of its deliberations the Group recommended that the DPP guidelines be amended to permit the prosecution to assist the sentencing judge by volunteering information on sentencing precedents irrespective of whether such detail was or was not solicited by the Court.

The Group further recommended that my Department, together with the Office of the DPP, keep under review the possibility of allowing the prosecutor to volunteer precedents and to make submissions at the outset of the sentencing stage and to make submissions to the court as to the aggravating factors, but without recommending a particular sentence range. The recommendations made by the Review Group are being examined by my Department. In the course of that review, the views of the Office of the Attorney General and of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will be sought. I am not in a position at this stage to say when the review will be completed.