The Department of Justice is paying compensation to victims of crime carried out by offenders on temporary release from prison, a judge has said.
Judge Gerard Haughton said the reason this had not come to public notice before was that the claims were being settled. But he added "they are using taxpayers' money and the taxpayers have a right to know".
The judge was commenting after hearing fresh charges against a drug user whose temporary release last year ahead of a court review date threatened the Governor of Mountjoy prison with contempt.
Elaine O'Driscoll (23), a mother of one, from Champion's Ave, Dublin, appeared in the District Court yesterday where she pleaded guilty to four counts of shoplifting, assault, obstruction of a drug search and failing to appear in court, all committed last month.
Judge Haughton refused jurisdiction on the assault and shoplifting charges, saying he was sending them to the Circuit Court as they were not fit to be heard in the District Court.
Although the individual amounts involved in shoplifting appeared small the crime was a "multi-million business" for which the taxpayers were paying through insurance, he said.
He said O'Driscoll had received early release last year although a court review date had been set for September 15th. He had sentenced her to 11 months' imprisonment the previous April for shoplifting in March.
When she carried out that offence she should have been serving three sentences of six months, 12 months and 15 months imposed for larceny between the previous October and January.
She was given temporary release again from the 11-month sentence and carried out more larcenies, receiving three prison sentences of 22 months, three months and two months between June and August. But she was released again on August 25th, the day she received the last two-month sentence.
"How anyone can release a prisoner offending with this regularity and being sentenced with this regularity defies explanation or belief," said Judge Haughton.
He said the Department of Justice, through the Minister, was defying the orders of the court and bringing the law into total and utter disrepute.
He remanded the defendant in custody to June 25th to see if the State wished to hear depositions on the shoplifting and assault charges. And he imposed a nine-month sentence for failing to appear in court on May 27th and took the obstruction charge into account.
Ms Fiona Brennan, defending, told the court O'Driscoll had been using heroin daily since she was 17 but was now 10 days drug free for the first time.
The Department of Justice said last night that settlements had been reached in seven cases involving people who took personal injury actions arising from assaults committed by prisoners "unlawfully at large".
This figure includes prisoners on temporary release who, if they commit an offence, are automatically considered to be unlawfully out of custody. Settlements in the first three cases came to £73,000, the then Justice Minister, Mrs Nora Owen, told the Dail in January 1997. The amount paid out in the four cases since then was not available last night.