Most cases that go to trial before judge and jury end in conviction, according to the DPP's statistics for 2001.
According to his annual report, 90 per cent of people charged on indictment plead guilty. Of the remainder, 5 per cent are convicted by the jury, 3 per cent are acquitted by the jury, and 2 per cent are acquitted by direction of the trial judge.
Mr Hamilton said that sometimes the suspect pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, and this was accepted by the DPP, especially if a more serious charge would be more difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt in court.
The figures also showed that, of the 6,820 files received in 2001, about half (3,141) did not end in prosecution.The figure of 3,141 refers to the total number of suspects whose cases were not proceeded with and not the total number of files. Many files refer to more than one suspect. The total number of suspects whose cases were considered was 9,456. The number of cases not resulting in prosecution is therefore one-third of the total number submitted rather than one-half.
Most of these (2,135) were not prosecuted because of insufficient evidence, or even because of evidence that showed that someone else had committed the crime. In 354 cases the time limit of six months for a summary trial (in the District Court) had expired, while 230 cases ended up in the juvenile diversion programme rather than in the courts.
Of the rest, 261 were not prosecuted because it was not "in the public interest" and 49 were not prosecuted on sympathetic grounds.
Asked to clarify these reasons, Mr Hamilton said it was not in the public interest to prosecute certain minor crimes because of the resources that would have to be devoted to them.
Decisions not to prosecute on sympathetic grounds tended to arise in cases where the suspect might be terminally ill and there was no possibility of reoffending.
More than half of all files sent to the DPP end in a decision within two weeks, with 68 per cent decided within a month.
There were 31 appeals brought by the DPP against leniency of sentence in 2000, the report shows. About half, 14, were successful. All but five of the 21 appeals taken in 2001 are still pending.
Mr Hamilton said that both the number and complexity of files continued to increase every year, with the total received growing from 2,298 in 1976, the first year of the office of the DPP, to 7,815 in 2000.
There was a drop of about 1,000 in 2001, but this was accounted for by the Garda taking decisions in more of the simple cases. The number of suspects is greater, as frequently one crime involves a number of suspects. Thus the total number of suspects was 9,456 in 2001.