January 2024 update – Views sought on the future of RJS4C Ireland
Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change (RJS4C) is a five-year collaboration between nine countries to implement the Council of Europe Recommendation on restorative justice. As the European project formally draws to a close in February 2024, please see below for the winter update from RJS4C Ireland – and for a short survey to collect your views on the next steps. The last few months of 2023 were busy, including…
Ireland’s restorative justice providers agree to collaborate to strengthen provision
In November, Maynooth University hosted a workshop for the service managers and practitioners of all restorative justice providers operating in adult criminal justice. This resulted in a consensus agreement to continue sector-wide collaboration, including further discussions and events in 2024. You can find an outline of the goals and plans that the group agreed on our website here.
New Private Members’ Bill seeks to promote restorative justice
In December, Pa Daly TD and colleagues published the Criminal Justice (Promotion of Restorative Justice) (Amendment) Bill 2023, which aims to enable and encourage referrals to restorative justice from the Gardaí, DPP and judiciary – including at the pre-charge, pre-conviction, and pre-sentence stages. You can read the Bill here, the Explanatory Memorandum here and the Oireachtas debate here. You can also see a short overview of the Bill on our website here, and a piece Pa and I wrote about it for Irish Legal News here.
Survey – What next for RJS4C Ireland?
As mentioned, the European RJS4C project comes to an end this month. However, each country has the option to continue its work, in whole or in part. Here in Ireland, we could continue the work of RJS4C – but only if you, our stakeholder group, wants this to happen. To help us decide what to do next, please complete this very short, anonymous survey (it will take 1-2 minutes max!) before Friday February 2.
Other materials of possible interest
- In January, Restorative Justice in the Community received some great press in Nenagh Live – check it out here.
- In November’s Restorative Justice Week, James Browne TD released a short video in support of restorative justice – find it on Twitter here.
- Also in November, Natalie Kemmy wrote a review of the French restorative justice film All Your Faces after it played in the IFI – read the review here.
- The BBC published a short video with Anuj Dal, a cricketer who participated in restorative justice after receiving online abuse – watch it here.