: 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.