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CHAPTER 4
“CONFUSION NOW HATH MADE HIS MASTERPIECE” (MACBETH Act. II Scene
(iii). 69)
EXPANDING THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY SERVICE IN IRELAND
INTRODUCTION
Unlike the communityservice order in England and Wales which in 1991 (Criminal Justice
Act, 1991) was designated a “community sentence” thereby changing somewhat its status
as an alternative to custody, the community service order in Ireland remained unchanged
until the sanction was modified pursuant to Section 115 of the Children Act 2001. This
allowed the partial use of the sanction of community service in respect of a limited cohort
of offenders who might be given community service without the requirement that a
custodial sentence would otherwise have to be imposed. Thus, a partial decoupling from
the custodial requirement of the sanction was to be permitted under this legislative change.
This modification of the sanction is considered in a separate chapter hereunder where it
will be argued that a discrete sanction intended by the Oireachtas for use in respect of 16
and17 year oldoffenders maybe not capable of operation at all.
In chapter 3, the community service order as a distinct penalty in Irish sentencing policy
and practice is seen to emerge. This is structured upon the central tenet that community
service could only be imposed as a direct substitution for an immediately contemplated
custodial sentence (Section 2, Criminal Justice (Community Service) Act, 1983). The
intended policy to limit the use of community service orders as direct substitutes for
custodial penalties was maintained throughout the Oireachtas debates by the Minister for
Justice, Mr Noonan, despite a number of amendments put in by the Opposition and
indeed by Deputy Shatter. Since the coming into force of the 1983 Act this policy has
been maintained without change. Various influential bodies and writers have advocated the
decoupling of the sanction of community service from the requirement to otherwise
impose a custodial penalty (Law Reform Commission 1996, Expert Group on the
Probation Service 1999). O’Malleysuggests:
“there is no legal reason why a community service order should not operate as a
“stand alone” provision in the same wayas a fine. The Act of 1983 could usefully
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