Law should ‘get real’ on remand – IPRT
In 2025, 74% of the 3,379 individuals remanded to custody were later released – either because they were not convicted, did not receive a custodial sentence, or because the court considered time already served to be sufficient.
This is one of the most striking findings of ‘Rethinking Remand: An Assessment of Pre-Trial Detention in Ireland’, an extensive research report released by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) on 20 July.
“The legal fallacy that the only reason a person is appearing before a court at the stage of bail is to protect the trial process just isn’t materialising in that way anymore,” said report author Niamh McCormack (legal and public affairs manager, IPRT).
‘Disproportionate use’
“One in five people in custody on any given day is on remand. IPRT is seriously concerned by the disproportionate use of remand custody for people experiencing homelessness, mental illness, addiction, and poverty for minor offences.
“The core message of this report, from a socio-economic point of view, is that a lot of people are ending up in remand detention simply because there was nowhere else for them to go.”
One of IPRT’s recommendations that would have an immediate impact on that, according to McCormack, is an amendment to the Bail Act 1997 to place therapeutic bail on a statutory footing.
This would mean there would be a formal mechanism for diverting people from prison in the first place.
“This change would stop the hodge-podge and informal back-and-forth around how bail conditions work,” she said. “I think the law needs to get real, and judges need to understand the lives and complexities of what's coming before them.”
Misuse of Drugs Act 1977
McCormack also argued for the repeal of section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 on possession of drugs for personal use.
“If this were repealed overnight, it would solve the prison overcrowding crisis and remand crisis almost immediately because of the amount of people who are going in there with minor drugs offences and with serious addiction issues,” she said.
As things stand, the operation of bail laws in practice is an issue of concern, McCormack added. “This research found that the bail system in Ireland is operating in an opaque, haphazard manner that risks eroding standards of evidence, the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial.
‘Patchwork of dysfunction’
“Practices and customs have evolved over time, and this has led to a kind of patchwork of dysfunction in a system that is primarily based on a Supreme Court decision from 1966 [People (AG) v. O’Callaghan].”
Other evidence-based recommendations for legislative and policy reform contained in the ‘Rethinking Remand’ report include:
- Establishing an adult bail-support scheme modelled on the successful youth-justice scheme.
- Removing garda responsibility for prosecuting bail applications, in line with the report An Assessment of the Efficacy of Bail Laws in Ireland by Lorcan Staines SC, published in December.
- Enshrining the principle of prison as a last resort in law, including default non-custodial alternatives for pregnant women and primary caregivers.