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task of reporting on the defendant’s suitability and that suitable work is available for
him/her to perform community service. In the Irish section the court must consider the
offender’s circumstances which it does at the sentencing part of the trial by way of
submissions from the defence counsel or solicitor or bydirect enquiryof its own motion at
the trial. A social enquiry report is not required under Section 4(1) (a) of the Irish
legislation but the tradition of providing extensive reports has remained a practice in
certain parts of the country for 57% of community service reports (Walsh and Sexton
1999:73). The Comptroller and Auditor General (2004) has estimated the cost of
producing an individual pre-sentencing report as between €800 - €900, although he does
not differentiate between the costs of extensive social enquiry reports and very brief
suitability reports for community services. Walsh and Sexton (1999:74) suggest that the
practice of providing extensive reports in 57% of all referrals for reports under Section
4(1)(a) may be attributable to a number of factors including matters of local legal culture
andprobation culture 37 .
When interviewed on the issue the judges in general favoured something more extensive
than a bare “yes” or “no” as to suitability but notwithstanding did not require a report of
great detail.
One judge put it thus:
“…I get a bit of both. I don’t get a huge social enquiry. I do get a report on how the person
interacted with the probation service; whether they showed a genuine interest in carrying out the
community service; whether there was work available for them and whether the recommendation is
there as to suitability or not. That is important to me. I would not like a two liner I would have to
say… effectively the focus is reallyon the person, his suitability and his willingness to participate in
the scheme.” A6J1DC
While another stated that reports generallyshould be:-
“short to medium.”.A1J5DC
37 Of the two hundred and fifty-seven community service reports available in the files: 57% can be described as detailed reports, 33% are concise, while the remaining 10% can be
described as very brief (Walsh and Sexton 1999:74). A detailed report typically covers two or three pages and contains substantial information about the offender’s personality,
background, education, skills, employment, familycircumstances, as well as details about the offence andthe circumstances in which it was committed. These reports often contained
details of a mitigatingexplanation fromthe offender about whyhe/she committedthe offence. Bycontrast the verybrief reports are less than half a page in length and contain very
sparse information about the offender and, usually, no information at all about the circumstances in which the offence was committed. Manyof these are no more than four or five
lines. In between are the reports which might be described as concise. Typicallythese would be about one page long and would contain information about the offender’s current
family and employment circumstances, as well as some information about the offence. They lack the detail and comprehensiveness of the full and detailed reports but are more
informative than the very brief reports. Limerick accounts for all of the reports which can be described as very brief where 84% of its reports fall into this category. 79% of the
reports fromCorkprobation areacome within the concise categoryas does 85% for Tralee. One hundredpercent of the reports fromWexford, Sligo, Navan, Dundalk, andAthlone
probation areas fall into the detailed category. In the Dublin probation area seventypercent of the reports can be classified as detailed while 30% can be classified as concise (Walsh
andSexton 1999:74).
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