The Government is to establish a working group to produce proposals for the development of restorative justice models, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.
The secretary general of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Sean Aylward, told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights that he saw merit in seeing how restorative justice schemes could be expanded beyond the existing pilot programmes.
Mr Aylward said there was considerable potential for greater use of restorative justice models but that these must be kept "within the jacket of the criminal justice system" and should not become a state within a state.
In a submission the Department of Justice said restorative justice was "effectively a problem-solving approach to crime, involving the parties themselves and the community generally".
"Restorative justice seeks to attend to the needs of the victim and to try to integrate the offender into the community and thus prevent reoffending.
"It involves the victim and the offender seeking to make good the harm done by crime. This is central and moves the focus from vengeance and punishment to restoration and healing, giving the victim a voice and the offender an opportunity to take responsibility for his/her action."
Mr Aylward said the department did not believe that restorative justice programmes were "an easy option".
He said the concept of restorative justice was set out in the Children's Act 2001, which sought to expand the options available to the court when dealing with a young offender so that detention was a last resort.
There are also two restorative justice projects for adults in operation in Nenagh and Tallaght. In a presentation, Brian Horgan of the Probation Service said that one of its strategic goals for 2006-07 was "to further develop restorative justice models and reform and revitalise our delivery of community service".
He said the cross-sectoral working group, proposed to the Department of Justice, should help build confidence in restorative justice as the basis for viable community sanctions.
"Much of the work of probation officers under the Children's Act will be restorative in nature, especially family conferencing for young offenders. The family of the offender plus significant people in his or her life are brought around a table with the victim, to understand the harm caused and to determine practical ways in which the offender can make reparation."
