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allows a community service order to be imposed upon a person aged sixteen years and
over.
The new community sanctions provided for under Section 115 have been described by
Shannon as tangible expression of the principle “that detention is to be an option of last
resort, to be ordered only in respect of serious offences of violence or the repeated
commission of other serious offences” (2005:143). According to Walsh (2005) the
community service order under Section 115 remains tied to the prescriptive requirement
that the court must firstly be inclined to impose a sentence of detention whether in St.
Patrick’s Institution, a children detention centre or a children detention school before it
may consider the use of a community service order. 54 Walsh specifically identifies the
community service order within the list of community sanctions as an alternative to a
custodial sentence. The availability of all the other community sanctions is not he states:
“…confined to cases where the court would otherwise be inclined to impose a sentence of
detention (or imprisonment) (Walsh 2005:207). He argues that the amendment of Section
2 of the 1983 Act provides a significant expansion of the application of communityservice
to children committed to either a children detention centre (Section 147(b)) or a children
detention school (Section 147(a)). A child committed to a children detention school is
usually below the age of 16 years. However a children detention school may include a
person over 16 years as a result of a continuing order of detention which commenced
before the child attained the age of 16 years. In all other respects however Section 2 of the
1983 Act provides that the offender must be over 16 years of age before a community
service order may be imposed. Thus the apparent expansion of the scope of community
service in respect of children in children detention schools or children detention centres
may be more imaginary than real, albeit the place to which the child may be committed is
other than St. Patrick’s Institution.
In discussing the position of community service orders in the scheme of sentences
provided for under Sections 115-116 of the Children Act 2001, it is important to reflect on
the possibility that the introduction of community service orders as a “community
sanction” and the intended use of this specific sanction by the courts may not prove
possible having regard to the manner in which the penal measure is structured within the
54 Section 2 of the 1983 Act is modified onlyto the extent that it includes for consideration for communityservice children who might be committed to a children detention centre or a
children detention school in addition to St. Patrick’s Institution. Section 154 of the Children Act 2001 provides: “Section 2 of the Act of 1983 is herebyamendedbythe insertion of
the followingafter “St. Patrick’s Institution” – “in anychildren detention centre designatedunder Section 150 of the Children Act 2001 or in achildren detention school”.
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