Seanad Report: The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said there was a trend towards a drop in the number of public order offences. Since the publication of the headline crime figures for the first quarter of the year the Garda Commissioner had told him that public order offences were going down.
This was a very hopeful sign. It might be due to a change in attitudes or to publicity about the problem. One swallow did not make a summer, but there was cause for optimism.
Mr McDowell was speaking on the Criminal Justice (Public) Order Bill debate, which passed the second stage. He said it was intended to strengthen substantially the law and the hands of gardaí in dealing more effectively with the problem of late-night street violence and disruption arising from alcohol abuse outside licensed premises or fast- food outlets.
The Minister outlined other proposed measures to deal with various forms of criminal behaviour. He said that people given the benefit of the Probation Act, so no convictions were recorded against them, might be required to pay substantial sums to defray the costs of proceedings taken against them. He would also consider including in a new bill a provision to allow those arrested over minor public offences the opportunity to pay notified "fines" of around €300 instead of being prosecuted. Such an approach would save both court and Garda time.
He said he hoped the Bill would strengthen the hands of the gardaí in dealing with people in the entertainment industry who might feel tempted to ignore reasonable Garda requests over the operation of their premises. He hoped there would be a time when gardaí would make much greater use of hand-held video cameras, so there could be no arguments in court about the scenes they were describing. Indeed, it might be possible to avoid a hearing if proprietors were aware that the gardaí had such recordings.