Restorative Justice aims to enable all those affected by an offence to participate actively in repairing the harm done and to find a positive way forward. Restorative Justice is now legislated for, and widely used, in many countries throughout the world. In Europe, a recent legal framework supports making Restorative Justice available with all offences and at all stages of the criminal justice process.

Most recent figures for Ireland, prepared by Restorative Justice Strategies for Change (RJS4C: Ireland), estimated that the total number of Restorative Justice cases reported was 1,056 in 2020. While initial figures have been produced for 2022, they do not yet include youth cautions. After removing youth cautions from the relevant previous year figures, while they show a slight increase for 2022 (413) based on 2021 (395) and 2020 (340), they are significantly down on the 2019 figure of 721.

Background
Progress on the Programme for Government commitment has been made through a series of actions in Justice Plans 2021, 2022 and 2023. The 2021 iteration outlined five actions around Restorative Justice:

• Action 158: Map the current state of play of Restorative Justice
• Action 159: Activate a restorative justice website
• Action 160: Develop options for an appropriate mechanism and process to create awareness and availability of Restorative Justice at all stages of the criminal justice system with consistency of service ensuring quality in training and practice
• Action 161: Consult with stakeholders on options and finalise a policy paper on the most appropriate choice
• Action 162: Publish policy proposals

In relation to Actions 158 and 159, the Department of Justice funded a group of Restorative Justice experts and researchers to map the delivery of Restorative Justice in Ireland, and to publish their findings on a new website. This website was launched in January 2021.

Regarding Actions 160 and 161, the Department’s Criminal Justice Policy unit worked with experts to develop a briefing paper for the Criminal Justice Strategic Committee (CJSC) that outlined the attributes of a successful Restorative Justice service, and gave four options for the delivery of Restorative Justice services in Ireland.
The first option – to strengthen existing capabilities within current structures – was chosen as the optimal direction of onward travel. With the publication of this paper, work on Action 162 is now complete.