An increase in the size of the fines which the District Court can impose and provision for bigger fines for companies are among the recommendations of the latest paper from the Law Reform Commission.
The consultation paper on "Penalties for Minor Offences", published this week, points out that Ireland has one of the lowest reported crime rates in Europe, yet sends more people to prison every year than most other European countries.
This is explained by the fact that most people in prison in Ireland serve short sentences. In 1997, the commission says, more than 70 per cent of sentences were for less than a year and more than 50 per cent for less than six months.
"Short prison sentences are not a constructive form of punishment from the perspective of the prisoner or society," it comments. Instead, fines should be a central element in punishment and policy on fines developed to meet modern conditions.
At the moment the district court, which tries minor offences, is prevented from imposing fines on companies reflecting their means. Given that breaches of, for example, health and safety regulations can lead to loss of life, this requires urgent attention.
The LRC proposes changes in the law to allow fines for companies to be three times greater than those imposed on individuals, to reflect their ability to pay and the fact that companies cannot be sent to prison.
There is also a problem with the maximum fines which can be imposed, according to the commission. On the one hand, there are inconsistencies between the sizes of fines for different offences, depending on when the legislation was introduced. On the other there is a Supreme Court judgment which indicated that under the Constitution, the maximum fine appropriate to a "minor offence" should be €3,000 in today's money.
However, the commission expresses doubt that it would be unconstitutional to impose a higher fine, taking into account the maximum figure in the 1920s and 1930s and the change in the value of money since. It also considers that it would be constitutional to impose higher fines on companies and corporations than on private individuals. If not, it asks the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution to consider proposing a constitutional amendment to deal with the matter.
It also proposed that a person's ability to pay a fine be taken into account when a fine is imposed. Therefore a higher fine should be imposed on a person with a high income than on a person with a low income for a similar offence.
The discussion paper also says that it is wrong that a person can be deprived of his or her liberty for a year by a District Court, where there is no jury. It therefore proposes the reduction of the maximum prison sentence imposable by a district court to six months.
The LRC has invited comments on the paper and will issue its final recommendations after consultations.