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unpredictability. It is argued in this studythat the form of communityservice introduced in
Ireland in 1983 was almost identical to the earlier form used in England and Wales except
for one important difference relating to the precondition that an actual custodial sentence
would be the sentence of choice if communityservice was not available as a legal sanction.
In all other respects the penal policy transfer was an almost complete emulation of the
English legislation. 26 This included a similar number of hours to be served, the issue of
consent and the provision of pre-sentence suitability reports. Such is the degree of
conformity with the English model that certain sections in the Irish legislation use the
exact same phrases and wording, leading, it will be demonstrated, to certain anomalies in
the Irish communityservice arrangement.
In the debate on the Criminal Justice Community Service Bill 1983, Deputy Kelly chided
the Minister for Justice for slavishly copying British legislation without first conducting
appropriate research specific to Irish criminal behaviour when he said:
“we rely on English textbooks as though the patterns of social existence and the
criminalitythat goes with them are likelyto be the same in Macclesfield as theyare in
Bangor Erris” (Dail Debates, vol. 342, col. 173, 3 rd May1983).
The debate on the measure in the Dail was greetedwith a markeddegree of scepticism bya
number of deputies, while in the Senate the measure was examined discretely and in
isolation from other pressing criminal justice issues, which complicated the debate in the
Lower House. In the Senate the idea of community service was welcomed as a timely
alternative to unnecessarycustodial sentences.
LOCAL EXIGENCIES: CONTEXT AND FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCED
THE INTRODUCTION OF COMMUNITY SERVICE IN IRELAND.
INTRODUCTION
The criminal justice and penal systems inherited from the British administration in Ireland
continued unchanged for much of the 20 th Century. Occasionally when a new criminal
26 The English scheme (Section 15 Criminal Justice Act 1972) provided that an offender must be 17 years or more before acommunityservice order couldbe imposedwhereas the Irish
scheme set the minimum age at 16 years. In 1982 legislative provision was made in England and Wales (Criminal Justice Act 1982) to allow for community service sentences for
sixteen year olds but the maximum number of hours was capped at 120 hours for this category i.e. sixteen year olds. Additionally the English scheme presumed significant
involvement of the voluntarysector which was not developedto the same extent in Ireland.
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