The year 2024 is the sixth year for which we have collected and published data to map the use of restorative justice in Ireland’s criminal justice process. Datasets were previously published for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (together) and 2023. These data suggest that 2024 saw the largest year-on-year increase in referrals identified to-date with 842 cases, an increase of 88% from the 447 referrals in 2023, referred to the Probation Service and Community-Based Organisations to consider the use of restorative justice. Including data on Garda restorative youth cautions (312 in 2023 and 298 in 2024), we identified an overall total of 1140 restorative justice referrals in 2024, an increase of 50% from an overall total of 759 referrals in 2023.

These figures represent progress from 2023 and are our highest overall figures recorded to-date. Still, referrals continue to represent a fraction of 1% of the criminal justice caseload: the District Court received 207,000 ‘incoming’ defendants in 2024 and the Circuit Court received over 6,600 defendants (Courts Service, 2025: 108, 111). There is still some way to go, therefore, before all victims and perpetrators of crime can access restorative justice, receiving the information and the opportunity to decide whether participating in restorative justice is right for them.

This mapping exercise includes data relating to the work of all eight organisations formally involved in delivering restorative justice within Ireland’s criminal justice process:

• All five organisations that submitted data for 2023 have also submitted data for 2024: the Cornmarket Project, Le Chéile Mentoring, the Probation Service, Restorative Justice in the Community, and Restorative Justice Services. Le Chéile offers restorative justice for child and young adult cases up to the age of 25; the Probation Service works with both children and adults; the remaining organisations work only with adults.
• We also received data from two Community-Based Organisations that offered restorative processes in 2024 for the first time: Northwest Restorative Justice Service (based in Tuam Community Training Centre, Co. Galway) and Athy Alternative Project (Co. Kildare). These organisations both receive referrals where the offender is an adult.
• Finally, we report publicly available data from An Garda Síochána on the use of restorative justice in 2023 and 2024 with children who received a youth caution.

This year, the briefing begins with an outline of how restorative justice provision expanded in 2024 and into early 2025. I then analyse the referral numbers and numbers of cases which were found to involve victim-offender dialogue in some form. As usual, I compare the figures with those from previous years, and explain a range of caveats and limitations of the datasets. Despite these limitations, this mapping exercise is the best available indicator of the scale of restorative justice provision in Ireland, including year-on-year variations and trends. For comparability with previous years, restorative cautions are discussed separately before I provide some concluding comments which reference ongoing developments in restorative justice policy in 2025 so far.

As ever, I am indebted to the many people who spent time collating the data, and for their permission to continue publishing this dataset in full. To see the full dataset for 2024, please click here. To see all annual datasets from previous years, please click here.

Service expansion in 2024

Service provision expanded in 2024 for the first time since The Cornmarket Project service for Wexford was formally launched in 2020 after a successful two-year pilot. First, the Northwest Restorative Justice Service (NWRJS), based in Tuam Community Training Centre, was established to serve Counties Roscommon, Galway and Mayo. The NWRJS receives referrals from the courts and Probation Service and offers various practice models, including direct and indirect dialogue and community reparation. Its establishment followed a Probation Service commitment in 2023 to fund a new restorative justice provider for the North-West Region. You can read an article about the NWRJS, featured in the Roscommon Herald in 2024, here. NWRJS received 20 referrals in 2024 and facilitated 13 cases involving direct or indirect victim-offender dialogue.

Second, in 2023 the Athy Alternative Project launched its Strategic Plan for 2023-2026, in which it listed ‘restorative’ as a core value of the service and expressed a desire to develop a new restorative justice service. In 2024, Athy Alternative Project received five pre-sentence restorative justice referrals from Carlow, Kilkenny and Naas District Courts, delivering three processes which involved direct victim-offender dialogue.

In October, the Probation Service invited expressions of interest for new restorative justice providers in 1) Donegal, 2) Kilkenny and Carlow, and 3) the South-West Region. The call also noted that ‘future expansion may extend’ to Louth, Cavan and Monaghan, ‘pending funding availability’. At the time of writing, there has been no formal announcement relating to which organisations, if any, succeeded in the course of that call. However, we can confirm that Le Chéile was successful in applying to deliver the service in the South-West Region. They appointed a new member of staff in March 2025 and subsequently expanded their service to receive referrals of all ages. Moreover, in response to a Parliamentary Question in May 2025, the Minister for Justice stated that Kilkenny and Carlow were served by Restorative Justice in the Community.

Some further clues relating to service expansion may be found in the Probation Service’s Restorative Justice Action Plan, published May 2025 (see here for the Action Plan and here for my analysis), and from Activelink, on which job openings are posted for the charity sector. The Action Plan states that the Probation Service have received €250,000 ‘earmarked to further configure the network of CBOs’ (p.9) to provide restorative justice. New funding, it notes, has been allocated to Restorative Justice in the Community for Westmeath, while Activelink posted job advertisements for new roles at Restorative Justice Services and Restorative Justice in the Community in 2024/25. While the number of professional roles dedicated to restorative justice provision is slowly inching up, services mostly operate with limited resources. For example, Cornmarket’s service in Wexford receives funding for a 50% FTE restorative justice position, and its four team leaders also provide restorative justice in addition to their core work.

In May, the Minister for Justice published a summary of the funding made available to five key restorative justice Community-Based Organisations in response to a Parliamentary Question by Mark Ward TD. This stated that the five organisations receive just €1.06m specifically to deliver restorative justice. For context, the Irish Prison Service budget grew by €79m to €525m in 2024/25 and the Department of Justice budget was €3.91bn. This means that restorative justice accounts for approximately 0.027% (just over one fortieth of 1%) of the overall justice budget (not including resources for the new services, or restorative youth cautions within An Garda Síochána) in 2024.

Referrals and victim involvement in 2024

Excluding An Garda Síochána-led restorative cautions to which I will come later, providers included in this mapping exercise reported receiving 842 referrals in 2024 and completing at least 136 cases in which the victim communicated with the perpetrator, either directly (48) or indirectly (88). These numbers likely underestimate the use of restorative justice in Ireland for two reasons: they omit probation and garda restorative practices which are not counted in the figures, and they omit restorative processes facilitated by other organisations (e.g., Youth Diversion Projects) or by independent practitioners (e.g., in institutional abuse cases) that take place adjacent to criminal justice and which we do not seek to capture in this exercise.

Referral numbers differ from the total case completions because referrals received in one calendar year may be worked on and completed in the next year, and because not all organisations can provide data on the type of restorative process delivered. For example, whereas the Probation Service report 129 referrals and 2 victim-offender dialogue processes, their figures do not include completion numbers for other kinds of processes. Thus, our figures underestimate how many cases involved indirect victim-offender dialogue, assuming that some probation cases involved a victim and perpetrator exchanging information, or questions and answers, through the facilitators. In a statement, the Probation Service said that it recognises the need to advance its data collection capabilities and it is a strategic priority to collaborate with the Department of Justice to achieve this.

The limitations of the case completion data informs the decision to continue focusing on the referral figures, as in previous years. This enables us to track a single number year-on-year for trend analysis, although limitations include that it incorporates referrals later deemed unsuitable (e.g., Cornmarket reported that 6 of 42 referrals were ‘deemed not to be suitable’). Table 1 shows the total referrals that were identified every year since this exercise started in 2019, inclusive and exclusive of Garda restorative cautions. Fig. 1 reproduces the same data graphically.

On a mobile device? Please view the below table in landscape.

Table 1 – Annual referrals to restorative justice and % year-on-year change

Fig. 1 – Annual referrals to restorative justice and % year-on-year change

Having collected relatively comparable annual datasets on referrals to restorative justice over six years, it is possible to make two observations:

• The 2020-2022 data, excluding restorative cautions, likely reflect the impact of COVID-19 on the District Court, given that most cases in that category are referred from the District Court. As we reported last year, however, it was disappointing that 2023 figures remained below those for 2019. The 2024 figures, both with and without Garda restorative cautions, are the first to exceed those collected for 2019 (the last year prior to COVID-19), and make up the greatest year-on-year percentage increases seen since we started this exercise. As noted, however, referrals were still only made in under 1% of criminal cases in 2024.
• The number of Garda restorative cautions can fluctuate significantly year-on-year, making it important to consider the total number of cases with and without these included. There is research needed to explore the reasons behind the fluctuations and why the restorative caution makes up such a small proportion of overall cautions, given its legislative basis in the Children Act 2001 and the training Juvenile Liaison Officers (JLOs) receive in mediation and restorative practices (see the next section for an analysis of youth cautions).

Although we have produced estimates for the number of completed cases involving victims in the previous years, these figures have been even more heavily caveated than the referral figures. This year, however, is the first time that we received precise figures for direct victim-offender dialogue processes from all participating organisations except An Garda Síochána, and for indirect victim-offender dialogue processes from all participating organisations except An Garda Síochána and the Probation Service. 2024 data suggest that at least 136 processes involved victim participation of some kind, of which 48 and 88 involved direct or indirect victim-offender dialogue, respectively. That most reported restorative processes do not involve victim dialogue reflects several factors:

• Many, if not most, cases referred to restorative justice are offences without direct victims, such as drug possession or sale and supply, and certain public order and driving offences. All providers have models of practice which involve working with the offender, their family, their community and/or various professionals or proxy victims in such cases.
• Restorative justice is voluntary. Not all victims, when contacted, wish to participate either directly or indirectly in a restorative process.
• In many cases referred which have direct victims, restorative justice providers are unable to obtain their contact details from the Gardaí to offer them the chance to participate.

Garda Restorative Youth Cautions in 2023 and 2024

When we published the restorative justice mapping exercise for 2023, it was not possible to obtain An Garda Síochána figures on restorative cautions. Recent years have seen long delays in the publication of the Annual Reports of the Committee Appointed to Monitor the Effectiveness of the Diversion Programme, which contain figures for the use of restorative cautions. Meanwhile, it has not been possible to obtain figures on restorative cautions directly from An Garda Síochána since the 2019 and 2020 mapping exercises.

This year, I can report that there were 312 restorative cautions in 2023 and 298 referrals to restorative cautions in 2024. The 2023 figures are publicly available in the 2023 annual report, published in mid-2025. The 2024 figures were made public following a Parliamentary Question by Aidan Farrelly TD. The 312 figure from 2024 is lower than the equivalent figures in 2022 (568), 2021 (416) and 2020 (716), but higher than the 125 reported restorative cautions in 2019. Given that we have the full cautioning statistics from the 2023 report, we can calculate that restorative cautions were just 3.4% of the 9,140 youth cautions delivered that year (informal: 4,924; formal: 3,904; restorative: 312 – see p.13 in the 2023 report here). The 2023 and 2024 figures must be read in the context of previous years: restorative cautions peaked at 1,036 in 2012, representing around 7.3% of youth cautions that year (informal: 8,103; formal: 4,981: restorative: 1,036 – see p.10 here).

Garda figures do not distinguish between different models of practice, nor clarify the role of victims (i.e., direct, indirect, or no participation) in JLO-led cases. In his response to the Parliamentary Question about the 2024 figures, the Minister said that the data was drawn from PULSE and was liable to change. The Minister also released a figure of 31 referrals to restorative cautions under s.26 of the Children Act 2001 in Q1 of 2025.

The 2023 annual report also provides information and recommendations on the following:

Training: In 2023, the new JLOs received restorative justice training and a six-day mediation skills training. There was also refresher training in DMR North, Limerick, Cork and Galway West. Further restorative justice refresher training was due to be delivered in 2024.

Case numbers: The report notes that ‘efforts to address the decrease in restorative cautions will continue in 2024’ (p.9), with training focused on communicating with and supporting victims. The Committee recommends developing ‘a Garda Youth Diversion Bureau Restorative Justice Forum to further support JLOs in the delivery of restorative cautions’  (p.32). As noted, however, the 2024 figures are lower than those for 2023, albeit they were labelled as subject to change.

Local communities of practice: ‘A collaborative Restorative Practice Community of Practice has been established in the DMR North Central Division’ involving ‘a monthly meeting organised and facilitated by the JLO Sergeant within the Division. Members of the community “tell their story”, have it acknowledged, and then as a community, discuss how to move forward together.’ The aims are ‘to build community relationships’, ‘establish and develop the practice of Restorative Practice within the community’ and involve community members in s.26 and s.29 restorative conferences. The report notes that ‘GNYDB will monitor this practice [and] explore the possibility of replicating the initiative in other Divisions’ if successful (p.21).

Conclusions and developments so far in 2025

The 2024 data suggest that the availability and use of restorative justice has risen, but that it still plays a marginal role in criminal justice. Continued growth in service provision and referrals are both important steps towards a system in which every person may decide whether restorative justice is right for them. It will also be necessary for the sector to collaborate to co-design shared language so that everyone can easily understand what restorative justice involves, and consistent recording methods so that we can better understand and monitor how restorative justice is being used in criminal justice in Ireland.

Supporting this momentum in 2025 is a provision in the latest Programme for Government that the Government will ‘continue to roll out nationally the voluntary restorative justice programme’ (p.119). The Probation Service Action Plan (my analysis here; action plan here) is also a significant development, in that it cautiously proposes expanding provision, increasing case referrals, and building knowledge and collaboration to increase access to restorative justice. This needs to be supported by resources, by law and policy changes and by whole-of-sector collaborative agreements, moving from a situation in which restorative justice is marginalised and inaccessible to one where it is available equally for all crime types, across the whole country and at all stages of the criminal justice process. We still lack referral pathways for adult cautions and, although provided for in the Victims of Crime Act 2017, at the pre-charge/pre-conviction stages. Many counties still lack a dedicated provider (15 counties are currently served, according to Probation’s action plan), and existing services operate on limited budgets.

As resources are ploughed into other areas of criminal justice, and it is increasingly recognised that traditional criminal justice seldom meets victims’ needs or supports desistance, it is more crucial than ever to invest in evidence-based approaches like restorative justice

Dr. Ian Marder, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology