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the Probation Service to operationalise the community service scheme in Ireland. In
particular she outlined a series of meetings between the District Court Judges and the
Probation Service under the procedure for statutorymeetings pursuant to Section 36 of the
Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961. 42
Once the Scheme was operational, further meetings were held between the District Justices
and the Probation Service including visits by District Justices to community service
projects.
The caution which attended the introduction of the idea of community service in the
White Paper and in the Dail Debates, combined with the specific targeting by the
Probation Service of the District Court as the jurisdictional base for making community
service orders, the absence of rules of Court in the Circuit Court to provide for the
making, extension and revocation of community service orders, collectively suggest that
community service was obliquely understood to act solely as a District Court sentencing
disposition. This understanding quickly hardened into a practice which has remained
almost constant since communityservice was introduced into Irish sentencing lawin 1984.
However, the wider consideration to use community service orders as a decarcerative
device generally, without specific reference to serious and non-serious offences, may have
been curtailed bythis unspoken understanding between the Executive (Minister for Justice
andthe Probation Service), the Legislature andthe Judiciary.
The role of rehabilitation in communityservice was emphasised bya number of probation
officers interviewed by Walsh and Sexton (1999) in their survey which strongly suggested
the community service order report might serve a wider function other than indicating the
offender’s suitability to perform the work and that arrangements could be made for the
performance of such work. Some probation officers interviewed expressed themselves
variously: “I assess their suitabilityand concurrentlyinvestigate an appropriate placement”;
42 Sec. 36(a) The President of the District Court mayconvene meetings of the Justices of the District Court for the purpose of discussingmatters relatingto the discharge of the business
of that Court, including in particular such matters as the avoidance of undue divergences in the exercise bythe Justices of the jurisdiction of that Court and the general level of fines
andother penalties.
(b) Such meetings shall not be convenedmore frequentlythan twice in one year.
(c)EveryJustice shall attend at everysuch meetingunless unable to do so owing to illness or anyother unavoidable cause and, where a Justice is unable to attend such a meeting, he shall
as soon as maybe informthe President of the reason therefor. (The Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961, Section 36).
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