The Court of Criminal Appeal has criticised the practice of some judges unconditionally suspending portions of custodial sentences.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Keane, presiding, said the appeal court "deprecated" the practice of including unconditional suspended terms in sentence.
He noted the practice existed among judges in the Central Criminal and Circuit Criminal Courts.
In unconditionally suspending parts of sentences, the judges were effectively reducing the sentence by the period of time in question, and this was not a satisfactory practice, the Chief Justice said.
It would be better if the judges in question just accepted they were imposing a lesser sentence.
Mr Justice Keane made the remarks when giving an appeal court decision upholding a four-year term, with the last six months unconditionally suspended (effectively a 3½-year sentence), imposed on a Dublin man arising out of the robbery of some €60,000 in assorted foreign currency from the Trustee Savings Bank branch at Henry Street, Dublin, on October 12th, 2000.