Murder and rape cases take two to three times longer to process in Ireland than in England and Wales, a new study has found.
A typical Irish murder case takes almost 21 months (90 weeks) to process from the time of arrest to the start of a trial, according to the report published yesterday by the National Crime Council.
Rape cases take even longer; on average, it takes 27 months (118 weeks) to move from the arrest stage to the start of a trial.
The council has recommended to Minister for Justice Michael McDowell that in future murder cases are dealt with in a year and rape cases in 12.5 months.
Launching the report, Mr McDowell promised to give careful consideration to this and other recommendations. However, both he and the Courts Service pointed out that waiting times for murder and rape cases had improved significantly since the research was carried out.
In the typical murder case, the report found, the suspect is charged immediately after his/ her arrest. It takes gardaí 10 weeks to complete their investigation and forward it to the DPP. It then takes a further 17 weeks before the case is returned for trial. However, the biggest delay occurs between this point and the actual start of a trial; this takes an average of 63 weeks.
In rape cases, suspects are arrested but not charged until an average of eight months later. The council says it recognises that the investigation of such cases is more time-consuming for gardaí than murder cases.
To reduce the time it takes to investigate rape cases, the report recommends the creation of new sexual assault units staffed by medical and forensic experts in major regional hospitals.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre welcomed the recommendations in the report but criticised the lack of a schedule for their implementation.
The report is the first study to examine how long it takes to investigate and prosecute serious criminal offences. More than 300 cases dealt with by the Central Criminal Court between 2002 and 2004 were examined as part of the research.
It notes that since the research was carried out the waiting times for trials have been cut from 18 months in 2002 to seven to eight months this year. The Courts Service said this had been achieved by assigning extra judges sitting longer hours to serious crime cases, changes in court procedures and the provision of refurbished courthouses.
On average, cases took significantly longer in Ireland (71 weeks) than in England and Wales (26 weeks) or Northern Ireland (15 weeks) to progress between return for trial and a first hearing.
The report found that almost 30 per cent of trials failed to start on schedule, often because no court was available.
The number of rape cases received by the court has dropped every year since 2000 (from 113 to 44 last year). The number of murder cases has also fallen, from 42 in 2000 to 35 last year. Some 83 per cent of murder cases and 40 per cent of rape cases resulted in guilty verdicts.
