Gardaí to retain prosecution role in court as legal reform proposal shelved

Gardaí will continue to prosecute cases in court despite previous recommendations from a commission that examined the future of policing in Ireland, Cabinet members have been told.

In 2018, the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland recommended that all prosecution decisions should be taken away from gardaí and should be given to an expanded State solicitor or national prosecution service. It also recommended that the practice of police prosecuting cases in court should cease.

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Justice Helen McEntee discussed the findings of the final report of a high-level review group which examined the role of An Garda Síochána in the public prosecution system.

The review group was asked to develop options for the Government to implement the recommendation to remove the role of prosecuting cases from gardaí.

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The group did not row in behind the commission’s original recommendation, however. Instead, it concluded that radical changes to the public prosecution system would not result in a big reallocation of Garda resources to core policing duties.

The group proposed building on existing reforms which promise greater internal oversight and consistency of approach in court management-related matters.

The Cabinet was told that gardaí will also continue to prosecute low-level but high-volume offences but that there will be “enhanced quality assurance and monitoring” by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

A divisional court management office structure will also be set up in every Garda division. Ministers were told there would be dedicated skilled personnel in place to reduce the administrative workload of frontline gardaí in terms of seeing prosecutions through to completion.

Cabinet was told that international research shows that very few jurisdictions have attempted the full reconfiguration as envisaged by the commission and that those who did have resiled from it to greater or lesser degrees, either for cost or for efficiency reasons.

The original recommendation to remove the gardaí from prosecution duties was made to free gardaí up to police on the front line.

The commission said that the amount of time gardaí spend in court or preparing for court “is enormously wasteful of police resources that should be deployed on core police duties”. It recommended that all prosecution decisions should be taken away from the police and that these roles would be assumed by an expanded State solicitor or national prosecution service.

The commission’s report also said that the Courts Service could make its own arrangements for serving summonses, while the Prison Service should take responsibility for prisoner escorts, with exceptions made for dangerous prisoners.

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