Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-24 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South I thank Senator O'Reilly for her amendment and contribution. We are dealing with section 15 of the Bill, which deals with a proposed amendment I am making to the Criminal Justice (Community Service) Act 1983. We had a good discussion earlier about the use of incarceration and prison as a penalty for violation of the criminal law. In many respects the proposal I am putting in section 15 complements that and is reflective of a desire for courts to recognise there are other options available for the purpose of granting community service orders. At present, it is limited to where there is a sentence of up to 12 months' imprisonment. What I am proposing in section 15 is that it would be extended to where you have to consider a sentence which has a potential penalty of up to 24 months' imprisonment. Similarly, I am doubling the amount of community service hours that will be put in place from 240 to 480 hours. Sentencing is one of the most complex functions a trial judge has. It requires the court to take into account a whole variety of factors. Generally, we do not prescribe actual specific sentences for offences except in the case of murder where there is a mandatory life sentence, and I think that is appropriate. Other than that, there are circumstances in each case which need to be taken into account by judges in terms of not just the liability of the offender and the nature of the offence; but also the offender him or herself and the extent to which this is a first time offence, the extent to which it was out of character with what has happened previously in the person's life and the extent to which the person is an ongoing threat to the community. It is very hard to prescribe then within legislation. However, there are many offences with penalties of up to 24 months' imprisonment where the offender poses no risk to the community and where the public interest may be better served by a person undertaking community service rather than being in prison. That can arise in terms of serious theft or fraud offences. They are factors where there is not a threat to the safety of a person. Every case that results in a community service order will help to free up prison spaces for offenders who generally warrant imprisonment. As I mentioned earlier, we are increasing the capacity within our prisons but also this is another factor and provision that will assist in making prisons more appropriate for accommodating the people who are there. There are many cases where the court will still determine that a custodial sentence is appropriate and, as acknowledged by Senator O'Reilly, it is for judges to make that determination. Amendment No. 15 also proposes to set out the matters the court is to have regard to when considering a community service order. There is undoubtedly merit in consideration being given to the matters specified in the amendment but these are already matters to which any judge would be expected to give consideration when considering sentence. Moreover, as legislators we must have in mine the separation of powers and the independent of the Judiciary. I do not think it would be appropriate to prescribe or delimit the court's consideration in such a way. It is also the case that every convicted person's case must be considered on its own merits and those referenced in the amendment may not always be the most pertinent considerations in a given case. I fully accept that sentencing is a complex and complicated issue. It is very difficult for us to second-guess a judge who has heard all of the evidence and will know all of the circumstances of the offence and the offender. All we can do is try to set out in legislation what the range of sentences should be. As I said earlier, it does not always have to be a custodial sentence. What is being done here is, we are not saying to judges that they cannot put a person who is convicted of an offence with a penalty of up to two years in prison. We are simply stating that in that instance, consideration must be given to a community service order. It means 480 hours or up to 480 hours of community service by the offender if the judge goes for that option but I cannot accept the amendments. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-24