The Garda computer system introduced just three years ago for recording criminal convictions appears to be "totally and utterly unreliable", Judge Gerard Haughton said in the Dublin District Court yesterday.
The system, known as PULSE, was installed at an estimated cost of €69 million, but has been criticised for not being accurate on a number of occasions by judges.
Questions were raised again yesterday by Judge Haughton, who said he was frequently given details of certain convictions which could not be correct and he had to wonder what effect they were having on overall crime figures.
He was speaking during a case in which it emerged that at least two convictions recorded against a man with 25 convictions could not have been accurate.
Paul Kinsella (27), Ferrycarrig Drive, Coolock, Dublin, pleaded guilty to several more offences of stealing cars, interfering with cars and attempted burglary.
After hearing details of these, however, Judge Haughton said the record of six months' imprisonment for one previous conviction of interfering with the mechanism of a car was incorrect as the maximum sentence was three months. Another for theft had been recorded as a sentence for both stealing and receiving stolen goods when a person can only be convicted of one or the other in relation to the same goods.
Judge Haughton said while it was not the fault of the gardaí prosecuting the case, it appeared nobody was sorting out charge sheets before they were entered on to the computer system.
"These (records) are from PULSE and it would appear to me that it is totally and utterly unreliable. One wonders what effect they have on the crime statistics."
The latest crimes occurred between May 2001 and September 2002 - the longest period for which he has been out of jail, Dublin District Court heard.
On one occasion, he broke the fly-window of a car parked in Beaumont Hospital and used a spare key inside the vehicle to drive it away. On another, he climbed into a motor dealer's premises and stole two stereos from cars parked in the yard. He was found with two screwdrivers as he hid under a car parked in the driveway of a house at 4 a.m. one morning in May 2001.
In August last year, he was stopped in Dublin driving a stolen car which had been used as a getaway vehicle only two hours earlier in a robbery in Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath.
He had previously been sentenced to terms of between three and 18 months for various other offences, including stealing cars, theft, burglary and escaping from lawful custody.
The court was told that Kinsella had committed crimes to feed his drug habit and was currently undergoing treatment. His solicitor, Mr Michael Staines, said he was "an intelligent man" and both Kinsella and society would benefit if he took up a community rehabilitation programme available to him rather than sending him back to prison.
Judge Haughton said, given his record, the only way he could deal with it was by imposing a prison sentence. He jailed him for 10 months on all charges and banned him from driving for five years.