PILOT DRUG COURT HOPES TO BE IN PLACE THIS SUMMER

The Minister for Finance is to announce the Drug Courts Planning
Committee next week. The committee of 23 members, including four
judges, is being set up to plan a pilot drug court.

It will be chaired by District Court Judge Desmond Hogan and is being
asked to plan the resources and facilities needed to support a drug
courts system and to establish a pilot project to start in the summer.

The system, which originates in the US, would see people charged with
non-violent drug offences sentenced to treatment rather than prison.
Treatment would be supervised by the courts.

Last year a working group on a courts commission chaired by Mrs
Justice Denham recommended strongly that the system be introduced into
the Dublin District Court.

The Department of Justice predicted the pilot scheme could be
introduced by this month, but this will not now be put in place until
the committee has reported. District Court Judge Gerard Haughton, a
High Court judge, Mr Justice Barr, and Judge Kieran O'Connor of the
Circuit Court have also been nominated to the committee.

Supt Eddie Rock, from the Garda National Drugs Unit, and Ms Anna
Quigley, from the Dublin Citywide community organisation, will also be
members.

Other members include Mr P.J. Fitzpatrick, former chief executive of
the Eastern Health Board and newly appointed chief executive of the
Courts Agency, and representatives from the Departments of Justice,
Education, Tourism and Health.

The Law Society, the Bar Council and the offices of the Attorney
General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Chief State
Solicitor will also be represented, along with the Probation and
Welfare Service, the Southern Health Board, FC1S and the EHB.

The committee's terms of reference are "to initiate, develop and
oversee" a planning programme, "to assess the adequacy" of resources
needed to support a programme and "to plan, establish and monitor" a
pilot project.

It will be asked to determine the costs of the programme and identify
"the scope for diverting resources arising from savings generated or
likely to be generated in other programme areas".