View/Open - CORA - University College Cork

egime instead. Interestingly, in the replies given, the same judges used the language and
expressions of the judicially developed suspended sentence, but usually concluded their
remarks on the topic by giving a clear indication that henceforth the new regime would
onlybe used. An analysis of their replies suggests that their conversion to the newregime
is due directly as a result of a new confidence in the enforcement of breach proceedings
and not as a result of any perceived obligation on their part to abandon the old system by
the introduction of the statutory suspended sentence. Examples of the District Court
judges` views are as follows:
“I can say that suspended sentences meant nothing to me until the 2006 Act
because I had perceived over the years that they were a waste of time and nobody
was ever brought anybody back to me on a sentence. I just stopped using them
because I didnot believe in them.” A4J2DC
“Generallyspeaking when I impose a suspended sentence, I do it in the manner of
saying the warrant not to issue unless the accused is convicted of a further offence
committed on or after whatever date of actually imposing and suspending the
sentence and within whatever period generally 12 months…with the new regime
I will be using that (the bond) exclusively.” A2J1DC
Although one Supreme Court judge did refer to the paucityof breach of proceedings taken
under the old system of suspended sentences, generally the judges interviewed in the
Circuit and Central Criminal Courts were reasonably confident that breaches of any
seriousness, if theyoccur, would be brought to the attention of those respective courts. In
contrast the judges in the District Court had little or no confidence that the old system was
efficacious. They based this lack of confidence explicitly on the failure of the relevant
authority usually the Gardai or the DPP, to re-enter the case for consideration of breach
when such breach was manifest in a subsequent conviction.
As noted, the enforcement of suspended sentences is procedurally complex and these
complexities have been a feature of the sanction from the beginning according to
Osborough (1982:255). However a degree of clarityhas been given bythe Superior Courts
in relation to such issues as:- the power of the court to disregard trivial breaches; the
necessity to invoke the original sentence in full if the sentence is to be activated at all; the
334