Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 428: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the progress on allowing the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against lenient sentences in the District Court and allowing the DPP to make submissions at sentencing stage. [15491/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, a report of the Law Reform Commission on prosecution appeals and pre-trial hearings cited the lack of sentencing information and a shared sentencing framework in the District Court as difficulties with regard to providing the DPP with a power to seek a review of unduly lenient sentences handed down in that court. Work is progressing on addressing this deficit through the development of the project known as the Irish Sentencing Information System (ISIS). This project is being overseen by a steering committee, established by the Courts Service Board and chaired by Mrs. Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme Court. The objective is to develop a system will allow users to enter relevant criteria and access information about the range of sentences and other penalties which have been imposed for particular types of offence. This will be an invaluable support to judges when considering the sentence to be imposed in an individual case. When implemented, I expect that this initiative will facilitate the preparation of legislation to provide the DPP with a power to seek a review of unduly lenient sentences handed down in the District Court.

Improved access to sentencing precedents and practice via the ISIS project would also facilitate any initiative on providing for prosecution submissions on sentences. At present there is no statute regulating the right of the prosecution to make such submissions, however, 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. The Balance in the Criminal Law Group, chaired by Dr. Gerard Hogan SC, considered this issue and recommended that the DPP's 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. These recommendations are being examined by my Department.