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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 26 Apr 1983

Vol. 341 No. 9

Criminal Justice (Community Service) Bill, 1983: Second Stage (Resumed) .

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

: This Bill is worthy of serious consideration because the general public will become aware that as legislators we have made this effort to come to grips with the situation that has developed over quite a long period. One might be tempted to say that it is better late than never. We hope that by the introduction of this Bill the general public will realise the necessity for the Bill. The problem of offenders and their numbers has reached such a dimension that our prisons and restraining institutions are overcrowded and this Bill is an effort to treat this matter with the sincerity it deserves. We have a very serious situation in regard to petty crime and vandalism, particularly by young people. They will now be brought under the regulations in this Bill. It very often has a very disastrous effect on young people if they are sent to prison and places of detention. I do not want to indicate that we should take lightly the seriousness of the crime committed against people and the public at large. We are all aware of the concern expressed by groups of people, community associations and individuals about crimes being committed against them.

This Bill shows that we are at least making some effort to deal with this situation which has been allowed to develop. I hope we may arrest the progress of petty crime, vandalism and the various criminal acts which can be dealt with under this Bill. The old adage of prevention being better than cure is something we probably have lost sight of. The Department of Justice for many years have been wrong in not ensuring that Garda barracks were erected to coincide with the development of very large urban areas. I am using my constituency as an example. In 1932 the development of the first scheme of a few hundred houses took place on the north side of the city. Over the last 50 years masses of housing estates have been built to accommodate people who were living in slums and hovels. However, Governments through the years have neglected vast areas of operation such as Gurranebraher, Church Street, Knocknaheny, Farranree, The Glen and Mayfield by not providing Garda stations. These should have been provided when such areas were developed. I hope the Department of Justice will waken up to this. For 20 years or more we sought the provision of a Garda station in one of the areas I have mentioned.

: I would be grateful if the Deputy kept to the Bill.

: I will, but comparisons are necessary. We are now introducing the Criminal Justice (Community Service) Bill. I am talking about communities which have been left for 50 years without the means to prevent crime. Prevention is better than cure. We are now providing community service to cure the ills we should have prevented. Más maith is mithid. Better late than never. This Bill will highlight the need for education. I condemn the cutbacks in education and the Government's policy in relation to it.

: The Deputy is still wandering.

: I am inclined to wander. We hear very little about good young people and the work they are doing. Only some people are breaking the law. However, with the Government's policy in relation to education many more young people will be on the streets as remedial teachers, guidance teachers and counsellors——

: For the last time, Deputy, you are wandering far from the Bill.

: The members on the Government side were given considerable latitude when making their contributions. It is only fair that the Deputy should make his point relating the community position to the areas in which these young offenders will have to work.

: I am in a position to judge what point the Deputy is making. I appreciate his problem in Cork. I have allowed him to wander off the terms of the Bill but I should be grateful if he would now keep to the Bill.

: Perhaps I am a happy wanderer but there are aspects of community life which are very relevant to the Bill

: Hear, hear.

: I am trying to make it clear to the public what we hope to achieve under the Bill. I am also mindful of the increasing number of young people. Statistics show that our young population is growing. As a result of Government policy in a number of areas we will have more of them to look after. I must be allowed to make these points.

This Bill was not just thought about last week. It is almost two years old. The situation has worsened in that time. Education must be referred to. The number of young people who might be denied education because of Government policy will create further problems. We should warn young people away from the situations they innocently could become involved in. We must educate them so that they will not go in the wrong direction. There are many bodies, for example, Foróige, where the energies of young people could be better directed than to vandalism and crime. We must ensure that they do not become caught up in the groundswell of misdemeanours of some young people.

It has always been accepted that prison sentences for young offenders rarely have the desired effect. This Bill might be a yardstick by which to judge the value of community work as opposed to the danger of putting young people into institutions. The report on the community services order as a method of dealing with offenders gives examples of tasks which can be performed by young offenders within the community. I have reservations about some of them. However, that is something that can be dealt with on Committee Stage.

The Bill is worthy of support for its efforts to discourage young people from straying from the straight and narrow. More importantly, it will help to remove the stigma of having been in prison or places of detention. We will be showing our compassion as legislators if we ensure that this Bill is passed, initially to create an awareness in society of the consequences of being in prison.

The public will also benefit by the energies of these people being used in a practical way, as suggested, by taking part in worthy projects in the community. I hope the Bill will not be restricted in any way by lack of finance. At the risk of being told I am straying from the point, I have to say I am worried about the figures in the Estimates for the Department. The position is a little frightening because, for example, on the capital services it was ascertained that the 1982 outturn was £16.5 million. The estimate planned by Fianna Fáil to provide for this year in that respect was £18 million. The estimate of the Coalition is down to £11 million and I hope that, wherever cheeseparing is done, this Bill will not suffer for lack of finance.

Deployment and use of gardaí leaves something to be desired and I hope that the Minister for Justice will regard my comments as being constructive. I know from experience and from evidence I got from various people concerned, that quite an amount of a garda's time is taken up in the barracks with secretarial work. There is nothing to beat the physical presence of gardaí on the streets. I am not in any way criticising the efforts of the Garda because they are doing a tremendous job and I hope the introduction of this Bill will make life a little easier for them. I hope every effort will be made to ensure the satisfactory operation of the Bill and, possibly, further developments. I welcome the Bill. I hope it will be seen as a commitment by the Oireachtas to come to grips with a situation which has gone too far.

: This is an important debate and unusual in some respects because of the degree of all-party support that its concept enjoys. That is evidenced by the fact that, during the lifetime of the last Dáil, the then Government and Opposition were simultaneously working in this area and produced Bills which they laid before the Dáil within a matter of some days or perhaps a week of each other.

It is also unusual to the extent that this debate has been hijacked by Deputies and used as a vehicle to express their views on matters that go well beyond the scope of the legislation. I listened to Deputy Lyons who was prevented by you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, from wandering too far and I know the Opposition spokesman, Deputy Woods, and the Ceann Comhairle had the same problem a week ago. It is understandable that Deputies on all sides are anxious to avail of every possible opportunity to express their concern and that of their constituents in relation to the problems of crime and vandalism in our streets. Over the past few weeks, I have attended a very large number of meetings of residents and community groups where the subject under discussion was the problems facing local communities in these areas. At a number of those meetings, representatives of the Garda were present. They have obviously been asked to put forward their suggestions and whether they see a solution. All these meetings have had the same theme. It was suggested that in some respects they are unduly restricted by our code of criminal legislation and they sought changes there. That will be the subject of separate legislation which will be coming before the House shortly. I do not want to comment further on that at present.

They also made the point that they feel severely handicapped by the perception that a deterrent no longer exists. They have all drawn attention to the fact that the overcrowding in our prisons and places of detention has achieved such a degree of public notoriety that it has further whittled down whatever deterrent might otherwise exist.

On several occasions in the last year or so this House, at Question Time and elsewhere, has directed itself to the unhappy situation in which we find ourselves, that many persons sentenced after due consideration to terms of detention or imprisonment by the courts are released before the lawful expiry of their sentence, not because there has been an adjudication by the prison authorities or anybody else that they have been rehabilitated by their period in custody and are now in a position to take their places in society, but simply on the basis that there is no room for them in our places of detention. The Minister for Justice made references to this fact in moving the Second Stage of the Bill. Deputies on all sides would for that reason alone be anxious to extend the range of options available to the Judiciary and to provide our judges in criminal trials with another option, apart from imposing a custodial sentence, particularly if the custodial sentence is unlikely to be served. That is a particularly urgent problem which gives the measure before the House a degree of immediacy that it might otherwise lack but if we never have that situation this measure must be taken seriously and is entitled to the support of the House. Until now our Judiciary have been extraordinarily circumscribed in the options available to them. Effectively they have the choice of imposing a custodial sentence, imposing a fine which for various reasons is likely to bear no relation to today's monetary values, in most cases the maximum that can be imposed having remained unchanged for a number of years, or to impose a suspended sentence and in effect allow the departure of the offender from court without imposing any penalty. Faced with that situation a number of judges have to an extent taken the initiative into their own hands and experimented in the area of restitution and quasi-community services. It has become the practice of a number of our judges to postpone sentence in particular cases to allow the offender before them an opportunity to show his good faith. Frequently that takes the form of making a substantial monetary contribution to a charity or in some cases assisting the work of that charity. That shows that the Judiciary are in support of the basic concept and anxious to extend the range of options available to them.

We must accept that our prison system has its failings and that as legislators we have a responsibility to provide an alternative. We are not alone in having that responsibility. There has been an increasing examination internationally of just how effective or ineffective our prison system is and an increasing international emphasis on a search for alternatives. That stems from a feeling that in many instances a non-custodial sentence may be the more cost-effective in that it provides a greater opportunity of rehabilitation for the offender and in some instances at least the community will benefit directly by the community work that will be undertaken in pursance of an order of this variety where work is done for the benefit of the community which would not otherwise be undertaken. That is a task to which criminologists in this country and also in Britain, Scandinavia and the US have been directing their attention. We are in a position to observe the lessons of other jurisdictions and to benefit from their mistakes where mistakes have been made. Such reading as I have been able to do on the British experience indicates that since the introduction of community service orders in the early seventies the experience has generally been very satisfactory. Their experience has been taken up by a number of other countries in the common law world between Canada and New Zealand. It is felt that it has a number of advantages. First of all it gives the offender a chance to be directly involved in repaying the community and in making direct atonement to the community in respect of an offence that he has been found to commit. Particularly important at a time of recession when employment is not easy to come by is the fact that it provides him with an opportunity to do that without interrputing his employment or any course of education that he may be pursuing. Even within the very limited extent to which the scheme or an analogous scheme now operates in this country we have seen communities benefiting directly in that the communities have acquired facilities and have had work done for them which in all probability would otherwise not have been done. I refer to the pilot schemes that already exist for the early release of prisoners to engage in community type work as a result of which a number of community facilities have been built, the scout den in the Finglas area being one.

Another reason that this concept has received the support of the community is a feeling that through some such mechanism it is possible to get closer to the age-old objective of making the punishment fit the crime. Reference has been made already in this debate to the very great lengths to which some states in America have gone in that area. For example, those convicted of drunken driving are required to serve their sentences by working in hospitals tending to serve the needs of accident victims many of them hospitalised as a result of the activities of other drunken drivers. I realise that this is perhaps a step further on which it may not be possible to take immediately. We must walk before we can run, but Deputies on all sides in this House and the public at large would see something very attractive indeed in bringing offenders face to face with the consequences of their recklessness and their actions. I hope that we will be prepared to move in that direction.

I want to make a number of suggestions that I hope the Minister will have an opportunity to consider. One advantage of this measure is that it does not interfere with someone's present employment or, as I indicated earlier, with any course of education that he might be receiving. The logical extension of that would be that nothing would stem from a community order which would in any sense inhibit the prospects of future employment. The attitude adopted towards the keeping of records in this area is important. However harsh or unfair, it is obvious that at a time when there are far more applicants for any job vacancy than there are jobs an employer is in a position to pick and choose. In those circumstances a prospective employee with a criminal record is obviously in a bad position. It would seem, in part at least, to defeat the spirit and sentiment of the Bill if by keeping records that somebody has been sentenced to a term of community service that person's prospect of obtaining employment were to be in any way impaired. On the other hand, I can see that any court would be anxious when dealing with an offender and addresing itself to the question whether this was an appropriate option to know whether the person has previously undergone a period of community service. I hope it might be possible to devise a scheme where the fact that a person has participated in this scheme would be recorded, but only for the purpose of assisting any future court before which he or she might appear in deciding on the most appropriate manner to respond, and it would not be regarded as a criminal record for the purpose of applying for a job, travelling abroad or any of the other occasions where one might be asked if one had a criminal record.

In much of this debate it has been assumed that this measure will be applied mainly to younger offenders. Obviously it has a particular relevance to these people and we all hope it will be used extensively in that area, but I would not wish to support the idea that this scheme should be confined to young offenders. A great deal of the discussion implied that the court which will use this scheme most will be the District Court. I would not like to be taken as supporting the notion that the operation of the scheme should be so confined. One of the real problems at present facing any member of the Judiciary in dealing with an offender, if the offender is already in employment, is the certain knowledge that to impose a custodial sentence will in almost all cases involve the loss of employment, in all probability leading to great difficulty in finding alternative employment. For that reason alone there is a likelihood of further offences being committed.

Responding to the economic climate, the courts have found themselves increasingly reluctant to impose a custodial sentence on an offender in steady employment. That reluctance is greatest when the offender comes from what is loosely referred to as a middle class background. At present the courts have the choice of imposing a custodial sentence, with devastating and far-reaching consequences beyond what the offence merits, or of sending the person home. For some of these offenders a period of community service would be salutary and I hope this weapon will be invoked by courts at all levels and in respect of offenders at all ages.

I notice the Bill does not confine the operation of the scheme to any particular court, except to the extent that it excludes the Special Criminal Court. I understand why that decision was taken. The fact that the offence was tried there involved an adjudication that the offence was such that the ordinary courts would not appear adequate to handle it. Having said that, it might seem incongruous to say that the offence was not so serious that this option should not be available, but if you look at the cases that come before the Special Criminal Court over the year you will see that a trickle of people got involved in serious illegalities as a result of foolishness and thoughtlessness rather than malice, and the court responded by imposing suspended sentences. In those cases a period of community service might have been a very effective additional weapon. For example, a respectable person with a responsible background who foolishly got himself involved on the fringe of an illegal organisation comes before the court which is satisfied that his involvement was on the fringe and decides to impose a suspended sentence. In my view such a person could only benefit from being required to work in a hospital where he could see how much people suffer from serious injuries which are analogous to those suffered by the victims of his organisation. In some cases this option might be helpful. In those circumstances, I wonder if it is wise specifically to exclude any court from the operation of this scheme? As one goes up the hierarchy of the courts one sees that the occasions on which it would be appropriate to invoke the community service order will become rarer and rarer, but however rare, I query if it is desirable to exclude that possibility.

It also seems inconsistent with the approach taken in considering what offences come within the scheme. The only offences which seem to be excluded from the operation of this scheme are murder and treason, where a fixed penalty is prescribed. That recognises that there may be occasions when even very serious offences for which a mandatory penalty is not prescribed may be appropriate for this scheme. Having adopted that all-embracing approach in the area of sentencing, I would have thought it desirable to adopt a similar approach when deciding what courts should exercise this function.

Whether this system works depends on those who administer the probation and welfare service attached to the Department of Justice and on the attitude adopted by the courts. In some parts of Britain when the system was first introduced it exacerbated rather than solved problems. Some benches of magistrates took the view that this was a useful addition and they started to sentence people to terms of community service who previously would have had their cases dismissed under the Probation Act or would have received small fines. The net result was that those parts of the country continued to experience an overstretched prison system. In addition, the people in those parts also found themselves with a probation service that was overstretched.

That is the danger here. I would think it desirable that when this legislation has been passed by both Houses the Minister for Justice will sit down with the Judiciary and talk to them about the spirit of the legislation and the motivation for its introduction. From those discussions one would hope that an agreed policy would evolve about the circumstances in which it would be appropriate to invoke the option.

I cannot see this legislation doing anything but good. How much good it will do will depend on the flexibility of those who are called on to administer the system. We are lucky that that task has been assigned to the Probation and Welfare Service who have already shown themselves to be highly committed and highly professional. I hope the legislation will have a speedy passage through both Houses and that the administrative steps required will be taken to make the possibility of imposing such sentences a reality. I hope these steps will be taken quickly and that in the near future our Judiciary will have this valuable weapon available to them.

: I will be brief because this is a Bill on which all parties are agreed. However, it behoves me as an urban Deputy to add my voice to those who have spoken on the general condition or welfare of law and security in urban and suburban Dublin in particular: I will leave the other parts of the country to Deputies who represent them.

I have been a Deputy for almost 20 years with the privilege of representing the people of Dun Laoghaire for that time, and I have seen a gradual breakdown of respect for law and authority throughout the nation. Unfortunately, particularly in the last five years, respect for our institutions and for authority generally has deteriorated and been translated into brutalisation of the community in the city and county of Dublin. I use the word "brutalisation" deliberately because it is a lack of tolerance of the civilised approach to our fellow human beings in the community I represent: the brutalisation of old people in their homes, whether by rape or assault and battery; the destruction of homes; the brutalisation of young people walking home at night on their own, young men or women who cannot any longer decide to go to dances or discos from which they would have to walk home. All that has become a thing of the past. The right and the freedom of people to live in safety in their homes or to walk from point A to point B within the community in which they live are things of the past.

One cannot go to a theatre or to a function in the city without coming out to find rows of cars vandalised, with windows broken back and front and all around, and any property in the cars stolen. That is why I call it the brutalisation of our society.

This Bill will go only part of the way as a solution. It does not deal with the whole problem. It does not go to the nitty-gritty of the problem. I have given this matter a lot of thought as have a number of other Deputies. We ask ourselves what is the solution.

Where I live in Dún Laoghaire there has been a gradual breakdown in the last number of years in law and security. My comments are not a criticism of the Garda Síochána in Dún Laoghaire or the greater Dublin area. The Garda have not been supported adequately by successive Governments. I am not now dealing with matters related directly to the Bill but for discussion in the House on another occasion, but I feel compelled to say that the time has come to support the Garda by providing for them the legislation which they require to keep a tighter grip on the community.

In Irish political terms I consider myself to be a relatively liberal person — that is a matter for others to judge but that is my perception of myself — but unfortunately liberalism is coming under stress and strain through the breakdown of law and security in the greater Dublin area. I do not like to see courts sitting without juries, and we have them at the moment, but the times we live in demand it, and as long as the problems continue we must have that type of court. Equally, I do not like to have to say that we must have more stringent laws with a prospect of the erosion of the freedom of the individual. Unfortunately, the individual we are dealing with is the criminal. Therefore, we in the House must have a look at the laws under which the Garda Síochána are working, in matters like questioning and so on. The public perception of law and security — to me "security" is a better word — is to feel free to walk abroad in one's community, to live in one's home in peace without the prospect of being attacked in it. These are becoming things of the past.

The second plank in my platform is the question of support for the Garda and the rules and regulations under which they operate. Support for the Garda might solve a particularly vicious problem which is arising in the community. One has an obligation to face the realities, and the realities are that the people in the Greater Dublin area, the city and county, require protection. If we do not give leadership, if we do not enact laws to give effect to that leadership, Dáil Éireann — and I am one of its greatest defenders — will lose the respect of the people. Unfortunately, that may be the subject for another debate if Deputies try to undermine the Oireachtas to get a couple of lines in the newspapers. I find that unacceptable.

The Bill provides an ease and an aid for our creaking prison system. My information is that when a convicted person presents himself at the door of a prison — I will not name it — he is told: "We have not got enough room for you. Come back in a few weeks and present yourself again". That is intolerable if it is information I receive is good. I hope that situation will not arise when this Bill becomes law.

As has been said, the only two offences to which this Bill will not be applicable are murder and treason. As I understand it, they are the only offences excluded. The Minister of State, Deputy Birmingham, mentioned that the two offences excluded are murder and treason. He should know on the basis that he is a member of the Government introducing the Bill. Undoubtedly the Bill will give some help and support to our outdated prison system. The responsibility lies with the Oireachtas to make the prison system work. Unfortunately at present it is not working properly.

The Minister of State, Deputy Birmingham, an erstwhile barrister, suggested that the Minister for Justice might consult with the Judiciary on the consistency of the application of community service orders — in other words, that the punishment should fit the crime. People against whom a crime is committed should be compensated in some way by the person who committed the crime assisting in restoring the property so vandalised.

For example, drunken drivers should be given a community service order to assist in hospitals to which victims of car crashes have been brought as a direct result of the criminal action of a drunken driver. I can think of a number of hospitals in this city to which victims of car crashes are brought to be restored intellectually and physically. I am not moralising. I am suggesting that the victim of a car crash should be seen by the person who broke up that person's body. The drunken car driver should be shown the consequences of his criminal action.

Some people paint graffiti on our walls, mindless, stupid anti-Irish expressions like "Brits out". I use the words "anti-Irish" because the ordinary British were the greatest supporters of tourism in Ireland. That has become a thing of the past because we have a mindless group of people who proclaim their patriotism through the barrel of a gun in one hand and a paint brush in the other hand. This has had a serious effect on the minds of British tourists. People who are caught painting mindless graffiti on our walls should be made clean those walls publicly of their handiwork.

When people are brought before our courts for the brutalisation of elderly persons, the District Court should order them to work in an old folk's home or a senior citizens' home to re-establish their respect for the type of person they have criminally assaulted. Some people who break into houses actually go to the point of destroying the home by tearing off wallpaper, breaking up furniture, and so on. They should be given a community service order to restore that home to its original condition so far as is within their competence.

The transgressors should be seen by the transgressed to be operating in the area in which they committed their criminal actions. By that I do not mean that a person who commits a crime in Dún Laoghaire should be forced to work in the Dún Laoghaire area. I do not think that would be reasonable, although the stage may be reached where it may happen. Perhaps a person who commits a crime in community A should be asked to work in community B. Such people are entitled to a degree of anomymity. That lies at the base of my proposition that people who engage in graffiti should be made to remove them publicly. It is a question of balance.

One aspect of the Bill worries me. Section 4 (1) (b) provides that a court shall not make a community service order unless the offender has consented. When the Minister is replying perhaps he will tell us why the consent of the individual has to be obtained. Is it because of the Constitution or because of some international conventions by which we are bound? Perhaps the Minister will deal with that aspect. If that matter can be clarified, Fianna Fáil, through their spokesman, Deputy Woods, might consider introducing an amendment to abandon the idea of obtaining the consent of the person convicted who is asked to operate a community service order. My view is that the person should not have any option. I do not think the subsection would be in the Bill in the form in which it is unless there was some specific reason for its inclusion but if we are not bound by international conventions and if it has been inserted only for some philosophical reason I think we should have another look at it.

The co-operation of the social services groups will be absolutely essential to the operation of the Bill, as will be the co-operation of trade unions and employers. Unless the crime committed is of a heinous nature, I think employers should be asked to allow the person convicted to remain in employment during the day and to carry out community service at weekends in the spare time of the individual concerned. An attempt should be made to reserve the job for the person doing community service. Employers should not be placed in the role of moral arbiters. Some of us do things on the spur of the moment for which we are abjectly sorry afterwards.

During the debate the question of vigilante groups was raised. I thoroughly deplore vigilante groups. I see them acting in the role of judge, jury and executioner and I find that utterly unacceptable. As a Dáil representative I cannot and will not support such groups. It is deplorable that in a part of our city a group of people actually went around knee-capping others and there was very little fuss about it. That is what a vigilante group can do. I can understand, and it is beginning to develop in my constituency where a group of people stay up at night to protect their housing estates——

: I do not think a long discussion on this point is in order.

: I thought I would get myself off the hook in that regard——

: I thought I had allowed the Deputy to make his attitude quite clear.

: The Chair has been patient with me and I appreciate that. I have made my position clear with relation to vigilante groups. In certain states in Dún Laoghaire people have taken it upon themselves to guard their estates at night time. That is legitimate as long as they call the Garda in the event of a crime being committed or about to be committed. That is very important. Vigilante groups have no special rights in our community and they should be rejected as a cancer. The whole concept is utterly unacceptable and within the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party I will resist strongly any move in that direction.

: In addition to not being in order, the Deputy is now guilty of repetition.

: I have to agree with that. I have set out my views and if I have been guilty of repetition I apologise.

: I welcome the Bill and I congratulate the Minister for Justice and all associated with its presentation to the House. One of the most serious developments in recent years has been the increase in crime and vandalism. As politicians we have done little or nothing about it other than recruiting more and more gardaí.

In 1978 we recruited 717 gardaí, 670 male and 47 female; in 1979 we recruited 302 gardaí, 285 male and 17 female; in 1980 we recruited 449 gardaí, 404 male and 45 female; in 1981 we recruited 517 gardaí, 445 male and 72 female; in 1982 we recruited 983 gardaí, 925 male and 58 female; in 1983 to date we have recruited 100 gardaí and we intend to recruit somewhere in the region of 700 to 750. All in all we have 10,888 gardaí in this country: in other words, we have a garda for every 315 people. We must ask ourselves where is this leading us? Is this the solution to the problem or are there other alternatives? I feel strongly that there are other alternatives but there has been a lack of will to find them. We see politicians on television and hear them on radio boasting about the number of gardaí that have been recruited but if they were objective about the situation they would have to admit their failure to cope with the problem.

As politicians we must face up to our duties and responsibilities. We know that jails and institutions have a low success rate. While they succeed in punishing they do not succeed in deterring of rehabilitating and there is much evidence on this point. Between 50 per cent and 80 per cent of first-time convicted prisoners go back to jail sometime in their lives. Many people sentenced to prison are convicted of petty offences but we are doing a disservice to society when this happens because often the crime does not fit the punishment. For this reason I welcome the Community Service Bill and I regard it as a positive step forward.

My reservations about the Bill are really about the politicians themselves. Sometimes I think we are our own worst enemies. We come here and set up more bureaucratic machines without any thought as to the personnel necessary to propel such machines and some months later we find that we are merely a cog in the machines we have set up. For example, last year we passed the Courts Bill. It was a worthy concept to transfer powers from the Circuit Court to the District Court but some months later we had on our backs the District Court clerks and our own constituents. This was because we did not provide the District Court clerks with the personnel or facilities to implement the Bill. Now our constituents have to wait up to nine months to get barring orders enforced, to obtain eviction orders and so forth.

Last year, this House introduced a Litter Bill which was a very worthy ideal and a good concept. Its passage through this House took many days, but the reality is that there are only 30 litter wardens. The only people who can implement this legislation are the litter wardens, but nobody in my constituency has ever seen one. Similarly, there are only 180 probation officers, many attached to prisons and bogged down with their existing work. There are no spare probation officers. In other words, they must be recruited, trained and given the resources to carry out this work, or we will grind to a halt before we begin this work.

When replying, would the Minister let us know the number of probation officers he intends to recruit, the training he intends to provide for them and if money has been provided in the Estimates for the implementation of this Bill? A similar Bill has operated successfully in the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, England and Northern Ireland and there is no reason why it should not work here. The only reason for its failure could be if it were not properly administered. I ask the Minister for Justice and the probation officers to put a wholehearted effort into ensuring its success. If it fails, we have only ourselves to blame.

There are many advantages to this Bill. It provides offenders with the opportunity of having a say with regard to how they will pay for their crimes and provides the courts with a choice as to the type of sentence to be imposed. It returns something to the community which has been taken from it. I have reservations on the type of work offenders will be asked to do. The types suggested in the Bill would deal with mentally handicapped and other young children, with the elderly and, to some extent, with the refurbishing and construction of buildings. These latter are preferential.

Despite our large crime figures, most of the crime is committed against property. Most young offenders do not illtreat people. A car window is broken, or a handbag is stolen. While these offenders have some respect for people, they have no respect for property and one may ask why. It would be easy to see why, if one had been raised in Seán MacDermott Street, in a small, enclosed environment, in a small dwelling, with no chance of ever having a large house with a garden at the back, of owning a car, or having money. This is the only form of capitalism these people know. For psychological purposes, it would be better to relate the work to property, so that the young people involved would realise that it costs money to replace a car window and that one has to work to get money.

We all know that our prisons are bursting at the seams. This Bill may have the effect of saving many people from imprisonment and might help that situation. Preventive measures such as this are excellent. Imprisonment for the young is a psychological blow much worse than any physical blow. Society is then faced with the very difficult task of getting these people to readjust and to cope with society. It would be better to leave these people in the community and let them serve their time working in retribution for their crimes.

In welcoming this Bill, I have one reservation. Many people convicted of crimes of vandalism are under 16, but this Bill deals only with the over sixteens. Most people begin their life of crime at 12 or 13 years of age. If they are to be imprisoned for the first three years of their criminal life, they become au fait with prison values and are in the company of experienced and hardened criminals. It is virtually impossible to rehabilitate such young children.

Our age of criminal responsibility, which is seven, is totally absurd, being the lowest of the whole European system. That age needs to be raised. This matter cannot be delayed any longer and having brought this Bill successfully through the Dáil and implemented it, the Minister for Justice should turn his mind to dealing with those under 16, lest it be too late. Nobody seems able to cope with the problem of 12 year olds who eventually end up as hardened criminals.

This Bill should and will work. Given the personnel, the necessary financial resources and the will, the Minister for Justice should be able to review its success in a year's time.

: I come here to add my voice in welcome of this Bill. Certainly, it is a step forward and is long overdue. I hope that the Bill has been well researched as to its effectiveness and its costings. I shall be looking through it section by section. Worthwhile contributions will be made on Committee Stage, rather than on this Stage. There will then be a teasing out of matters relating to its effectiveness. Should this Bill fail, it would have a disastrous psychological effect on the whole community. I hope those responsible for the framing of this Bill have had its contents well researched and are convinced of their effectiveness.

We can read Garda reports, in their own magazine, where they tell us that law and order are totally out of control. We have been talking about this for many years but with little or nothing being done to prevent what is now happening. We are now reaping the results of past neglect. There were many opportunities available to us and here I am not speaking only of the Department of Justice but also of the Departments of Health, Education and so on. On a number of occasions Private Members' Bills were introduced here in an endeavour to bring about a greater realisation of the dangers of what was happening. As Deputy David Andrews said, brutalisation seems to be the order of the day. No longer are people safe even in our hospitals. In Cork recently we were warned by the Garda of things happening to people and their property on their visits to hospitals.

In parts of this Bill I detect a "softly, softly" approach. For example, why should an offender have a choice in any court? The provisions of this Bill will cause many complications for judges. For example, first he must assess an offender when he will be inundated with reports of probation officers and social workers. In this respect I foresee a judge or justice postponing sentencing until such time as he has had an opportunity to consider the reports of the probation officer or social worker involved in the case. Our courts are bogged down already by such reports. How on earth can a judge be expected, when perhaps 20 offenders may appear before him in any one day, when he will be confronted with reports about the various individuals, to make an assessment as to whether he should pronounce a sentence of jail or community work?

I shall touch on just a few points to which I hope the Minister will reply later. For instance, in the case of an offender carrying out community work for so many hours a day, what protection has the person who brought that offender to court or who served as a witness in the case in court? What supervision is there of that offender? If he is instructed to work perhaps five hours a day on some type of community project he is then free without supervision. These are questions I hope will be teased out on Committee Stage. Many people contend that it would be a terrible thing that a man who broke into their house and who is now perhaps working down the road four or five hours a day is then free to come round to their area again. What provisions are there in the Bill for such eventuality? Should such an offender be brought before the court again where the judge would change the order of the sentence?

I am somewhat worried also about the choice of sentence. We all know that all provisions are abused and that when an offender appears before a judge he will know in advance exactly the kind of sentence he wants rather than the judge telling him the kind of sentence he is going to impose on him. The Minister must take another look at the relevant section because I fear that these provisions will be interpreted by the public as a kind of "softly, softly" approach or an excuse to keep people out of jails, leaving our jails available for the more serious criminal only.

We are talking here about work for an offender but there is no mention of preventive activity or of any training during that work period. This is of vital importance because many young offenders come from broken homes, suffer from lack of security at home, are deprived, unemployed and lacking in education. But it would appear that all of the provisions in the Bill have been drawn merely for the sake of having offenders repay the community for what they have done, full stop, rather than involving them in some kind of rehabilitation or training as part of their sentence. Otherwise we might as well put them in jail where together they can plan so that on their release they can continue their criminal activities. Some part of their sentence period must be devoted to training or rehabilitation and I would ask the Minister to give this serious consideration.

While on this whole subject of justice it must be remembered that over the years there have been very serious bank robberies in the perpetration of which our security forces have been placed at considerable risk. Worse still, what about a bank manager and his family who now live in fear? Why on earth cannot some method be devised by which a bank manager closes a bank and lodges the key of the door at the nearest Garda station until the bank is due to be reopened the following day? To my mind the holder of a bank key is a man carrying a bomb. Those of us who know bank managers are aware that they and their families are now living in fear. In this respect banks should face up to their responsibilities——

: I do not want to interrupt Deputy Wyse but he is dealing with prevention rather than punishment and doing so at some length.

: I agree but I fail to understand why, in all of the provisions of the Bill, there is not included some preventive measures such as training and so on. The Minister was afforded a tremendous opportunity in this Bill of touching on other areas such as training, prevention of certain types of crimes, especially those committed by young persons. The previous speaker mentioned vigilantes. Community associations have a big part to play in the implementation of the provisions of the Bill. People have a responsibility in regard to the criminals who live in their community. Too often people are aware of what is happening in their area but do not inform the authorities concerned. On Committee Stage emphasis will have to be placed on making the legislation effective. It is important also that the money necessary to implement its provision is made available. Above all it is imperative that the system is properly monitored so that any changes that are necessary are made. The legislation represents an important step forward and it would be a pity if it failed because of lack of finance or the necessary staff to implement its provisions. That would be disastrous and it would have a serious psychological effect on the community.

: I listened with interest to the contributions to date. It is obvious that all Members are looking forward to the other criminal justice legislation which the Minister intends introducing shortly. Most of the comments dealt with crime and the problems in the community but I intend to confine my self to the Bill under discussion and reserve other comments for the forthcoming legislation. Deputy Andrews expressed legitimate concern about his constituents who on returning from the theatre find, as he said, that their cars have been brutalised. That reflects the situation in his constituency but many people in my constituency do not have the option of going to the theatre. They are more concerned about being able to leave their homes to go shopping or for a walk. In that respect I should like to refer to what Deputy Myra Barry said about the number of gardaí and the tendency in recent years to continue to recruit. I have made a point of studying the deployment and use of gardaí in my constituency and throughout Dublin and have come to the conclusion that succesive Governments seem to have overlooked the great need to examine the role of the Garda in our society and their efficiency. It is extremely difficult to get gardaí to patrol troubled areas in my constituency following requests by shopkeepers or householders.

: The Deputy is not keeping to his promise.

: I am talking about the community.

: We are dealing with arrangements for convicted persons.

: I am referring to the community service scheme and how it will operate. It is necessary to ensure that our existing services are properly and efficiently controlled. I do not think that is happening. I accept that we are dealing with convicted persons and not the causes of crime in our community.

I sympathise with the view of Deputy Andrews in regard to accidents caused by drunk drivers or convicted persons. Very often such people do not realise the terrible injuries they inflict on innocent people. I am aware of that because my father-in-law who was such a victim has been a paraplegic for four years and my brother was killed by a car. There is merit in getting young people to visit our prisons to learn about life inside. The Minister pointed out that where a fine was inappropriate there was no other remedy for our courts but to send people to prison and because society had to be repaid the Minister felt it would be appropriate if there were alternative remedies. The word "rehabilitation" can be disregarded when discussing our prison system because it is not possible to rehabilitate anybody under it. We need a committee of professional people to examine and implement proposals for the rehabilitation of prisoners. There has been a lot of criticism by some of our judges that people have been let out of prison before their sentence was completed but such moves are often on compassionate grounds by the governors and supervisors. Very often it is through ignorance by our judges—I do not mean that in a derogatory way—that certain people are sent to prison. When those people arrive at the prison they are graded and are not all mixed together. We have all heard remarks, made mostly out of fear, about sending people to prison. Most of the remarks about locking up every offender are made by those who have never visited a prison, because I so not think many people who are not directly concerned ever visit prisons. There is room for the rehabilitation of convicted offenders under this Bill.

An area requiring examination is that relating to medical officers in prisons. Their reports should be corroborated and verified before they are submitted to courts for consideration by judges. I have had some very unpleasant experiences in this area. I was privy to the result of an examination by a medical officer of a certain prisoner who was on a drug charge. The person was later released but I was appalled on questioning him to find that the medical officer had merely opened the door of the visiting room and looked at the fellow for ten or 15 seconds and that that was the extent of his examination. His recommendation to the court was that this person was a drug addict and offender who needed to be put away for a long time. I was horrified because I know the person involved and a number of others and I will be making this point to the Minister on another Bill.

Community service is an interesting innovation. We should not simply say that because it has worked elsewhere — and there is no proof of that — it will work here. There is a strong opinion that people who receive the dole should work for it. I do not think such a system would work and the question then arises as to whether this system will work. Will offenders work effectively for the community? I am not sure they will. When we consider the position in relation to legitimate employment we see there is much laziness in public bodies such as corporations and county councils and in semi-State bodies such as CIE and Aer Lingus. These people are paid well and enjoy security but it is very difficult to get some of them to work. We all know of complaints about the services provided by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and others. The Minister is expecting minor miracles in believing that people who have been convicted of offences will work effectively in the community. How is this to be achieved? Some offenders may not look on such work as punishment. Where then is the deterrent?

I am not saying that in every case people should be imprisoned. From my attendance at meetings I know that there is a great lack of understanding and people who do not know what they are talking about suggest that everybody who commits an offence should be put away. Usually it does not affect the people who make this suggestion but sometimes members of respectable families can have a brush with drugs and panic then sets in. There is no lonelier or more neglected place than prison because a prisoner is forgotten about and there is very little public awareness of what that person goes through.

I would not like to see coming from this Bill another army of dossers because we must be very conscious of our work ethic. We must get away from the "soft job" attitude and the lack of determination to work. Projects should be given to individuals, not groups. It would be very difficult to have groups of offenders working together. That would entail one supervisor to every five or six people even if they were spread through the community. I asked what punishment would be available in the event of work not being carried out properly. I see that the Minister has a remedy in that he can bring offenders back to the courts.

The Minister favours a wide range of sanctions for the courts and that is not a bad thing because our judges are restricted as to what they can do in the case of offenders in certain circumstances. There are some people who might just have a brush with crime and it is unfortunate when they have to be sent to prison. It is good to widen the choice available to judges. Criticism of the Judiciary will be even greater than at present for failures under this system. The Judiciary are not adequately safeguarded under this Bill in relation to decisions they might make. I will be seeking amendments so that the high standards of our Judiciary can be maintained and not weakened as a result of this measure. On the other hand, decisions as to sentencing under this Bill will be made by people who are not entirely familiar with or suitable to decide when community service should be done by an offender. Sentences will be passed by people who have never dirtied their hands and would not know what work is effective and rehabilitative. The work must be such as to enable satisfaction to be derived from it by the offenders, jobs which give a sense of achievement such as properly building a stone wall.

I know of a case a long time ago where there was a serious robbery committed in Dublin and one of the offenders was sentenced to prison. He was a very competent person with his hands and he overhauled every machine in Mountjoy while he was there. There was not enough for him to do but it probably helped him to keep his sanity. It would be admirable if we could suit the work available to the skills of the offender.

There are interesting jobs which can be done, which one gets satisfaction out of doing, such as draining land, cleaning a river and other jobs like that, which might be suitable to the community but there is not much hope of a decent amount of work being done. There may be a stigma attached to such work by an offender but that might be part of the punishment. There is a provision in the Bill for an offender to be able to discretely carry out this work. We all make mistakes and do things we very often regret and we would like to make amends for. If we could make amends quietly we would feel satisfied if we were given the opportunity to do that. We should not make a big issue of this and those offenders should not have to wear distinctive clothing, be paraded down the streets or marched up by uniformed officers to certain areas to carry out this work. That would not be rehabilative but rather humiliating.

The Minister mentioned accommodation in prisons and he referred to the relative comfort of a cell and stated:

Unlike prisoners in many other countries in western Europe most of our prisoners enjoy the relative comfort of a cell each.

What is meant by that? I presume the Minister has visited prisons and places of detention. There is very little comfort in a cell and there is nothing comfortable about the edifice on the north side of the city, which was built over a century ago. A cell might be a place where one might go mad or hang oneself, as happened too often in the past. Maybe it is a place to contemplate.

It is a good idea that first offenders are given the option of carrying out community work. I am not too happy about the method used by the Department of Justice in hoodwinking the people of Clondalkin in the way they set about building a women's prison there. Now it seems to be a much larger undertaking than was envisaged although there were many protestations from the people in that part of my constituency. I understand the building there is to open soon as a general prison. Government Departments should not set out to fool people. Deputies have the right to ensure that we get honest answers from Departments in relation to such undertakings. This was well in train before I was elected and I hope it works out all right.

This Bill will be very suitable in relation to women prisoners. I visited the women's prison in Mountjoy a few times. There were only a few prisoners in an appalling building. Those prisoners are very badly catered for. There were 16 when I visited this prison and all of them could be let out and supervised. On one occasion when I visited this prison I was appalled to see two 16 year old girls on totally unsuitable sentences. Those girls were drug addicts and should not have been in that prison. There was no rehabilitation possibility for them there. They had locked themselves in their cells for a couple of weeks because another prisoner, who was also on a drug charge, had come in and they were terrified of that person. We have had very few women prisoners in the past and very little attempt was made to rehabilitate them. Some of the offences they were in for, such as street offences, are so trivial nowadays, by comparison with what goes on, that they should never have been put into prison. I hope, when women prisoners come before the courts in the future, that the courts will recognise the enormous good quality of the female population and how seldom they have offended the criminal law. Services should have been provided for those people to avoid sending them to prison.

The Minister stated when introducing the Second Stage:

The Bill provides that where a person is convicted of an offence for which the court considers that in the ordinary way the appropriate sentence would be one of imprisonment, the court may, with the offender's consent, instead order him to perform a specified number of hours of unpaid work. The work contemplated is work of a kind that will benefit the community but that people cannot readily be got to do in the ordinary way for pay.

When I read that I asked myself who wrote this? What work is the writer talking about? Is he a civil servant, does he know what is going on in the real world where one has to work? I remember crawling through 22 inch sewerage pipes with two law degrees in my back pocket for pay. What work is the writer saying here can be done under the Bill that cannot to done for pay? Almost anything will be done for pay. The unemployment problem would be less severe it there was a lot of this type of work for which it was decided to offer money, whether it is work under water, people having to go through pipes, do sludge clearance, mining, sewerage clearing, dredger work or anything else like that. It is not so long ago when there were no flush toilets in the dressing rooms in the Phoenix Park and they were able to get people to go there with horses and carts to empty out the latrines. There were also jobs around the city where ashes were collected on carts. There were other jobs where people went around to collect the food scraps from houses to feed pigs.

: I am sure the Deputy will agree that he is drifting away from the Bill.

: I am drifting a little bit but I am directly relating what I am saying to the work which the Minister spoke about. This is where I believe the Bill has flaws in it because the wrong people are deciding about the matter again as happened in the past. I accept your ruling. I was going to talk about the appalling kind of jobs that are done for pay. I believe that work without pay is out. The list of jobs given in the Bill are very soft by comparison with what people who are in paid employment have to do. There are many people who would gladly change their job if they could do some of the work which is suggested in the Bill.

The Bill is out of touch with reality. There is a void between the administrators and the community. It is the community which is suffering and which would know best what should be done to help it. It was a grave error to set someone up in a lofty office far away from all the trouble and set down what he thinks should be done.

The Minister referred to a sub-committee of distinguished lawyers, academics, sociologists and public servants which was set up in Britain and considered for four years what changes might be made to existing non-custodial sentences. People who are terrorised by vandals were not taken into consideration when the Bill was drafted. The opinions of the majority of people are never sought and one would think it is deliberate that a few people decide what should be done for the majority. I hope the idea of such a committee is scrapped. It was used in the past but did not work. What would lawyers and academics know about the conditions that would give rise to these situations? What would they know about the remedies when they do not know the causes?

I am a working-class person who struggled against the odds to go through the legal system. It was easy for me to see the void which exists between the legal profession and the man in the street. I was not welcome and it was not made easy for me to enter the system. The ordinary person has to kick the door down to get in and fight his way through to survive within it. These people are not suitable to look down on the terrible conditions and atrocious problems inflicted on the community as a result of lawlessness and disorder and decide what is good for the community. The remedy lies within the community. They must be consulted. This is making the mistake of the rulers knowing what is best for the downtrodden.

The source of this document is British legislation. Much of British law has been transferred into our laws. We are aping Britain unnecessarily. We cross the sea to get their legislation as if we could not formulate our own unique answer to this problem. Did my distinguished colleague, Deputy Kelly, not warn the House about following Britain's lead in everything? The class system still exists in Britain. We know how unsuitable British answers for Irish questions were in the past. We can formulate our own answers and do not need the cuddled, protected-from-inflation and recession-proof lawyers of the British system to outline the answers to our community problems. We need a sympathetic but firm body of Irish people who are familiar with the problems to formulate an answer which, because of its unique Irishness, will best suit the situation. We must grasp this opportunity. We are capable of doing so. We have plenty of talent. The business community are at their best as are the professions. Both can take on anyone in the world.

We have always had a great understanding of other people. However, it is difficult for people from across the water to understand the kind of people we are. Yet, what do we do? We take a British Act and try to suit it to an Irish situation by summarising its principles and putting them before the House. It is almost an insult to the House. Although the principle is good it is not necessarily the correct solution. However, it is the only one before the House and we must decide on it. Perhaps by commenting on the Bill it will be changed and we will come up with something more suitable to our needs.

I know this measure has been taken separately from the Bill which will come before the House in the next few weeks. Perhaps if we waited until after that Bill becomes law we could give better effect to community service. I would welcome a complete review of the custodial system in addition to a review of the court system, sentencing, the education of lawyers, the appointment of judges, the removal of judges and the monitoring of their performance, plus the efficiency of the Garda Force in their operations. As Deputy Myra Barry said we have bragged about successive Ministers increasing the Force every year. We now have 10,000 gardaí but no one has asked if the Force is efficient, how easy it is to get gardaí out on patrol and how well they are doing. However, that is a different area, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and I do not want to try your patience by referring to it.

I would welcome an overhaul of the entire custodial system, but not by a sub-committee of distinguished laywers, academics, sociologists and public servants. What is so distinguished about lawyers except for the amount of influence they can muster, the money they earn, whether they win or lose, and the political influence they can bring to bear on their careers?

The Minister said in his statement that the Bill we are debating coincides, to some extent, with the relevant British legislation although the opportunity has been taken to improve where possible, in the light of British experience, on the corresponding British legislation. It is terrible that we have so many educated, qualified and suitable people who cannot draw up our own Bill without basing it on Bills in other countries. I am not sure whether it will suit. We are told the pilot scheme was extended throughout Britain and seems to be doing very well. Research would have to be done to verify that and I do not think the problems of a population of 60 million people are comparable to the problems of a population of our size. We are looking for a specialised package in our community, say in Dublin city, and then one for the other large cities and towns and I do not see why we cannot come up with our own solution. Have we no initiative? Confidence and imagination may be lacking in the Department of Justice, the Department of Finance and the civil service generally; it is not lacking in Irish people or Irish business but it awaits positive initiatives from those Departments. I have no doubt that those initiatives will be forthcoming from the Government.

There are different grades of prisoners and, without having heard what criminologists say, I imagine they would be composed of first offenders and unfortunate people who become entangled with crime through falling in with the wrong company. Then there are more hardened offenders, gang leaders and organised crime godfathers. These categories should be graded so that community service would help to rehabilitate them. I am not talking about the prison system because this Bill is talking about offenders and this is an opportunity for us to instal a rehabilitative system, because when habitual offenders are absorbed into the prison system, it is very difficult to rehabilitate them. Usually, as they grow older, they stop committing offences and there are not many old people in prison.

There has been an explosion of petty crime which has led to more serious crime in the last five or ten years and many people have fallen into these early categories. This is an opportunity to rehabilitate more people. Prisons are not big enough to hold all our offenders but there is an opportunity here provided we are able to apprehend them. There is no mention of that and there is an assumption I cannot go into here, because it is not contained in the Bill, that we will be able to apprehend offenders and that the large numbers of crimes committed in the community will be detected, that the offenders will be brought before the courts, that this Bill will be enforced and that the judge will be able to make decisions based on it. I do not see how you are going to have a massive increase in detection of crime and convictions, given the sluggishness of our court system, how difficult it is to apprehend people and the number of gardaí and their efficiency. We are talking about existing offenders. We will be able to filter them through this system and get them into community service but we will still have the main body of criminal activity and criminals operating. That needs to be tackled separately but it is another day's work.

In Canada there is a provision for model prisoners who, when they come into prison, are quickly spotted. They are given an opportunity within the system to behave like normal people outside. They are graded and put into less restrictive prisons and quickly brought back into society. There is no possibility of rehabilitation in Irish prisons, certainly not in Mountjoy. That can be easily verified. One would have to have non-association with experienced offenders. In relation to the type of work in the community, I envisage offenders doing strenuous work with a very high achievement rate, with physical and mental training during that term because I am terrified of the chances of people falling into a dosser mould. So many jobs and companies have been destroyed by elements who will not work themselves or will not let anyone else work. It is a great responsibility on whoever is going to supervise this system to make sure that it works properly.

I do not think that probation and welfare officers at the moment are geared to supervise the work of offenders. That area must be investigated very thoroughly and costed by the Department, otherwise we will have something of the magnitude of AnCO and its inefficiency looking after our offenders. There is no use in bringing people out and saying, "There you are, work away at that". These people must be qualified and trained and know what they are doing. I hope that some thought will be given to that.

The Minister also mentioned a phrase which I suppose I am harping on, "useful work", work which no one else would do, for which they could be paid. I do not think that any such thing exists. The Minister has talked about useful work done which otherwise might not be done. That is a contradiction in terms. The Minister referred to the lack of funds for this service because of restraints on the economy at present. I hope that he will enter very carefully into the long-term cost of providing this service. Too often we set up a scheme and start off something that will cost £100,000, £200,000, then it is £2 million, and then £12 million. We had that in school transport which was to cost £1.3 million and now it is £33 million. Someone with foresight must look at the problem.

We are fortunate in having one of the lowest prison populations in Europe. This Bill makes an attempt, maybe worth-while, to resist an increase in our prison population. The only way of doing that is to have this Community Service Bill which provides that offenders can go out into the community, but I hope as a result of that we will not end up with a whole population of criminals outside all the time. The slow down of the rate of increase in the number of offenders being committed to custody could mean that with a large number of clever offenders we would have a growing known number of criminal population among the community, and that would be bad. That is why we must be careful to make sure that this system is not capable of being manipulated by unscrupulous criminals who are able to use it to continue with their criminal activity. I am sorry to be cynical about the position of getting people to work for nothing when the soft job, so to speak, is so sought after in Irish life and very often we cannot get people to work in well-paid, secure jobs. Perhaps the Minister will consider employing some of these people in some Departments of the public service and semi-State bodies.

I like the idea that the community are being given an opportunity to involve themselves in dealing with their members who step out of line. That is an important observation by the Minister because it shows an understanding that respectable, first class citizens can slip up. A member of our society who just happens to do something stupid or make a mistake has an opportunity of restoring quickly his integrity in the community. I feel deeply for such people when they end up behind bars, particularly those who merely make a mistake. Such institutions as, say, Mountjoy are very severe in their administration but I know that the governors there do an excellent job in grading and keeping the different wings and floors separated so that possible — if I may use the word — contamination is less likely to occur when an offender first enters. Depending on the seriousness of his crime, he has an opportunity to segregate himself from habitual offenders. Such a person as that can go through hell while behind bars.

It is unfortunate if such people are mixed with criminals. One deterrent against acts which can mean imprisonment is the knowledge that prisoners have practically no sympathy from the community and anyone incarcerated in prison is presumed to be guilty, to have done wrong. There is an understandable desire on the part of terrorised members of our community to lock up everybody who is causing trouble, but that is not entirely the solution to that problem. It should be mandatory for the people envisaged by this Bill to pay visits to prisons such as Mountjoy and examine the routine there. It might be difficult to have conducted tours but such persons would be offenders and therefore entitled to go. To one spending time just walking around that institution the sight of people being locked up for the night, having to pick up their breakfast and go back to their cells to eat it behind locked doors, the same for lunch, having to go in single file and being totally supervised, would in itself be a deterrent. Then that offender could go about his community service in the knowledge that should he not carry out fully the order of the court he will end up in that prison. The realisation of where he could end up would be a natural deterrent to his offending again. I often feel that a tour or visit by schoolchildren to Mountjoy Jail would be more beneficial than a tour of Leinster House. It might teach them to stay out of trouble. Prospective offenders cannot envisage the depressing awfulness of prison and that is why I think that what I have suggested would be beneficial.

The Minister said that the judge dealing with the case is required to satisfy himself that the offender is a suitable person for community service and for this purpose he must consider a report about the offender prepared by a probation and welfare officer. This is indulging in guesswork, not judgment. It is unfair to judges in the event of future criticisms as a result of an abuse by an offender. I am concerned that our Judiciary will be subject to criticisms of this kind because they are dealing with very large numbers of cases. This kind of sentence is very liberal and light and the intention is to rehabilitate, but it can easily be abused.

If a community service order has been invoked and an offender is working for a private individual and something serious happens, there is the possibility that the judge might be criticised very severely. This legislation says that the judge must satisfy himself that the offender is a suitable person for community services. How does he do that, especially if the person is a first offender? A judge does not know what the future holds for any individual, but if an offender commits a crime while carrying out work under the community services scheme the judge should not be held responsible. This Bill should be amended on Committee Stage and I will put down an amendment to ensure that our Judiciary, who have been severely criticised in recent times, will not be abused and lose the confidence of the community.

There must be a rehabilitative content in the order. The mental state of an offender should be taken into consideration. The mental state of an offender who commits his first offence might be such that he cannot take on a job and he may be so depressed that he is unable to work. I do not see any mention in this legislation of psychiatric or other tests for such offenders. Before an offender is sentenced he has the option to choose to do community work or accept another sentence. He may be so shocked at the prospect of having to spend time in prison that he might not be able to opt for this scheme or, having chosen community work, he might not be able to carry it through. There should be a provision in the Bill to cover such an eventuality.

The Minister said he was considering the feasibility of establishing a committee to monitor the operation of the scheme. The committee will consist of voluntary and official social aid groups, the Judiciary, trade unions and employers. I will be referring many times to the non-political appointment of committees made up of members of the Judiciary and other bodies. I appeal to the Minister to be very prudent when appointing members to these committees. I applaud his statement that an important aim of this Bill is to try to ensure that compliance with the community service order does not jeopardise the defendant's employment or his availability for employment or unduly disrupt family life. This is a very far-seeing approach because it allows a person who steps out of line to make amends and to get back into the community. One of the flaws of our present system is that if a person makes one slip he is on record and put into prison from which he might never mentally or physically recover.

This Bill is very imaginative, but we must ensure that nobody abuses it. If an offender is sentenced to do work under this scheme it should not be in his own area where he could be recognised by his neighbours and friends who would know he had committed an offence and had to do this work. Some people might say that this information should be published, but with this far-seeing improvement we should allow the offender to do the work in another district where he will not be recognised. This will enable him to get back into the community and nobody will be any the wiser.

I am very concerned about the selection and training of staff. I hope it will not lead to another AnCO. Getting people to work and knowing how to motivate them is not a job for the amateur or for the person who does not know what he is doing. The probation officers and social welfare officers have the job of watching prisoners, but the people working in this scheme should be professionals. They should know how to tackle the job; they should strive for a sense of achievement and when they go home at night they should feel they have given something back to the people with whom they were dealing. It is no use letting them loose. I am very concerned about this talk of the work ethic and so on. There are thousands of people in our public service and semi-State institutions, in secure pensionable jobs who, even though they have well paid pensionable guaranteed employment, will not work, do not know how to work and will not let anyone else work. It would be detrimental, therefore, if people who are unskilled in this area were given the task of supervising and operating this Bill.

It is with great reservations that I welcome the principle of the Bill. I will not say that I reject the taking, almost verbatim, of a British Act, but it is unsuitable in an Irish context. Several times this Bill makes reference to the British measure and gives quotations from it. One sentence refers to the relevant British legislation and the British experience. It refers to "the corresponding British experience". I do not think it should be necessary for us to do that. Indeed we might ask ourselves what are the people in the various Departments doing. When they are given a task to do by the Minister for Justice they apparently ring up the Ministry of Justice in Westminister and ask them to send them a copy of their Act. Then they trot it out here, present it to the House and we have to discuss and pass it instead of an original Bill which we think would be best suited for the country.

We should produce our own solution for an Irish problem. It is laughable in 1983, after all the trouble we have had over the centuries and the complaints we have had about aping and following the British, that we should have a Bill based on the British Act. I am not criticising the British but we have the ability to produce our own solution. In the past we have always said that British solutions did not suit Irish problems. We should be coming up with our own Bill. It is disgraceful that we should have an almost verbatim copy of something in existence in Britain. We are capable of doing better and I recommend to the Minister that he does not bring this Bill into force until after the introduction of his Criminal Justice Bill which we expect to be before us soon. I am sure many Members will be contributing at length to that Bill.

: I will be a lot briefer and a lot blunter than my friend and colleague, Deputy Skelly. I do not welcome the Bill with the degree of enthusiasm of my colleagues. I accept it is an attempt to introduce a theory into the fight against crime, but I came into politics because of my deep concern about law and order. I come from a town, Dundalk, with the highest crime rate outside Dublin. The restoration of law and order to the streets of cities and towns must be our prime objective.

The proper time to talk about law and order at length will be when the Criminal Justice Bill comes before the House, but we cannot divorce law and order from this Bill. I suppose my views on this question would be considered a throw-back to another age. I have no doubt they would be scoffed at by many legal and academic people. I belong to the hang them and flog them brigade, and I do not make any apologies for it. I indict successive Governments and Dálaí for their failure to come to grips with something that is causing great distress in every village and town throughout the country.

As I have said, my views may be scoffed at by theorists and sociologists but I believe they are being echoed by the ordinary man in the street. Deputy Skelly, being very compassionate, expressed a lot of concern for criminals and for their comfort in the various prisons. My concern is for the victims of those criminals. Sociologists, do-gooders and liberals have gone too far. The incidence of liberal thought in the Judiciary has gone from one extreme to another, and politicians have sat by and allowed the Judiciary to do it, probably thinking that politicians have no function in the matter. I take issue with that viewpoint. Judges are appointed by the political system and are paid from public funds. They have a lot to answer for in the matter of maintaining law and order.

Various suggestions have been made by different people, but I believe the best rehabilitative process is through deterrents. It is the absence of deterrents that has brought law and order to its knees here. The only growth industry in this country seems to be contempt for law and order. We have apologists for crime and criminals: we have people agonising over what makes people commit crime. We have people apologising for criminals because, perhaps, their mothers let them fall on their sides when they were kids. I do not accept these various theories. I believe criminals must be punished and, as I have said, it is the absence of the application of the deterrents which are available to the Judiciary that has resulted in the appalling escalation of crime.

I have strong reservations and grave doubts about the Bill because I do not believe it can be operational or functional. While possibly it is excellent in theory, I do not believe it will meet with any degree of success. The answer to crime is the restoration of discipline in society. I should like to see discipline restored in our schools where it was abolished recently. Discipline must then come into the District Courts and the Circuit Courts. We need more jails. We need a jail in every county. If there is a necessity for a jail in every county we should build jails. We can provide millions of pounds for fly-by-night American companies. We can grant-assist many doubtful industries. We can come to the assistance of many companies, and even buy them on behalf of the State, which have proved unsuccessful in private hands. We must provide money to build more jails.

The average man in the street is crying out for the restoration of law and order. With due respect to the Minister this Bill is unrealistic. I want to pose a question: how many crimes will be committed by people doing community work? We have seen the unholy spectacle of bail. People are now let out on bail for murder, which used to be the ultimate crime. There are many recorded instances of people committing serious crimes while out on bail. As an ordinary citizen I object to bail for serious crimes, particularly murder.

Unfortunately the crime of murder has been downgraded from being the ultimate crime to being a nine days wonder. Recently two unhappy sentences were recorded in the courts in relation to the horrible crime of murder. People are deeply aggrieved at the sentences meted out on both those occasions. The Garda have been criticised. I should like to go on record with a vote of confidence in the Garda. We have an excellent force, on a par with any police force in western Europe.

: The Deputy has been strictly in order up to now, but a discussion on the Garda would not be in order.

: I accept that, but I want to record my appreciation of the work they do in the fight against crime. We have an excellent force. I will vote for this Bill because I recognise it as an attempt to introduce some deterrent against crime. I have great doubts and reservations about its success, but I hope to be proved wrong.

: I am like the reporter with a ten page story and only two columns to report it. I welcome the Bill. It is long overdue. Making the wrongdoer compensate the community is an old concept, but making the wrongdoer contribute a service to the community is a new one. I do not agree fully with the sentiments of the previous speaker when he said discipline is the way to eliminate crime. The Garda Síochána report for 1981-82 shows there was in increase of 23 per cent in crime. The increase in crime and the increase in social problems go hand in hand. Crime is on the increase because the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged in our society is becoming wider and wider.

Poverty in the form of lack of job opportunities and lack of recreational facilities must be one of the reasons for the increase in crime. The concept of community service is a good one. Unless we wean people from crime at an early stage, they will progress to the more serious types of crime. We can help to reduce the effects of crime by introducing a Bill such as this but unless we get down to eliminating poverty in our society, we will never succeed completely in eliminating crime. I am not suggesting for a moment that crime is confined to people who are unemployed and living in disadvantaged areas, but those problems are contributory factors. I am trying to be as brief as possible.

: The Chair does not wish to urge the Deputy to be brief, but he should come back to the Bill.

: I welcome the concept of community service, but the success of the Bill depends on co-operation between a number of important groups, the co-operation of the Garda which we know will be forthcoming, combined with the co-operation of the community associations, the public at large and the probation service. This co-operation is vital.

I should like to refer to the setting up of Garda stations in new areas. In the development of new areas and the provision of essential infrastructural services, this has been overlooked. Unless we set up our Garda stations at the development stage in new areas, it is difficult subsequently to get the Garda accepted as another part of the community. This should be considered by the Minister in future.

I should like to mention the question of parental control. Many of the crimes we see reported in newspapers are committed by young people. I cannot understand how young people can gain access to alcoholic drink so easily. There is an onus on the Garda and the community to ensure that access to alcoholic drink is difficult for young people.

Debate adjourned.
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