DPP concern over future commitments

THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions has said she is concerned it may not be possible to sustain the volume of work carried out by her office in the future because of reduced resources.

In the foreword to her first annual report, DPP Claire Loftus, appointed in November 2011, said her office’s resources were “fully stretched”.

“We have largely managed to maintain the same overall rate of throughput as achieved in 2010 and 2009. I am increasingly concerned, however, that it will not be possible to sustain this in the coming years,” she said. “The expenditure of the office is essentially demand-led as we do not have control over the level of crime or the number of prosecutions we must bring.”

Ms Loftus said the office had made some savings, particularly in the area of legal costs in 2011, with an accumulated cut to counsel fees of 26 per cent since 2009.

She also warned that an EU directive being negotiated on the rights of victims of crime, which includes a provision entitling victims to reasons for non-prosecution of crimes, would have an impact on workload.

The office had begun giving reasons for non-prosecution in cases involving death in 2008 and this had proved to be “very resource-intensive”, she said.

The report showed the office received 12 such requests last year and since it began giving reasons for non-prosecutions, 33 families had made requests. Almost 80 per cent of these related to fatal road traffic cases. Detailed reasons were given to families in 24 cases, in five cases the request for reasons was declined, one request was withdrawn and three were still pending.

More than 16,000 prosecution files were received by the DPP’s office from the Garda and other investigating agencies, according to the annual report for 2011.

More than 12,500 files were disposed of by the DPP’s office last year with no prosecution taken in 37 per cent of the cases. In almost 30 per cent of cases a prosecution was directed on indictment, before the circuit, criminal or special criminal courts. In 33 per cent of cases there was summary disposal at district court level.

In three-quarters of the unprosecuted cases, the reason for not proceeding was insufficient evidence. In 6 per cent of cases the injured party had withdrawn the complaint and in 4 per cent the decision was taken not to prosecute on public interest grounds.

Figures in the report also showed there had been a doubling in the number of times the DPP appealed the sentence handed down by judges in the past 10 years.

In 2002, 23 such applications had been made, while last year the figure was 55.

The report also showed just over 60 per cent of cases sent forward for prosecution on indictment in 2010 had resulted in convictions.

Some 35 per cent had not yet been heard and 2 per cent resulted in acquittal.

A further 2 per cent were struck out or discontinued.

The majority of cases heard at the Central Criminal Court resulted in conviction based on the defendant’s plea.