Chapter 1: What is the court poor box and how does it function?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. But if someone has stolen from a business, should the business be the entity that gets the compensation? Well, Vincent Jennings is here, CEO of Convenience Stores and the News Agents Association for more on this. Vincent, you're welcome to the programme. You don't have a problem with the poor box per se, but you say first things first.
And if a shop has had goods or money stolen from them, that they should be compensated first.
Absolutely. You got it in one. This is a situation where we want the state to acknowledge that the victims of crime, and in this instance, obviously, because I represent retailers, I'm speaking about retailers, but any victim of a crime who has suffered a financial loss.
that they are treated effectively as preferential creditors if the matter comes before the courts, and that the presenting guard, the DPP, must inform the judge that there is money outstanding or that compensation has been paid to allow that judge to take the decision as to how to dispense with any matters relating to a non-fine or otherwise.
OK, so there was a case in Athlone, a recent court case, and this defendant had committed three drive off fuel thefts and he came to court with money for the poor box. And this was the one really that you were asked about. And you said, look, if he had money for the poor box, that money should have gone to the garage owners.
Yeah, and I don't believe that actually the solicitor who represented the man actually said, this is for the poor box, he said he's brought ā¬300 into court by way of mitigation.
And the judge should, I'll be perfectly honest with you, the judge should have actually said, because they knew that it was ā¬125 worth of fuel had been stolen from these people, and it should have inquired, has compensation been paid? It hadn't. We know because they're members of ours.
And they should have said, OK, well, we'll take the 300 and 100 each to the service stations or at very bare minimum, although we'd argue against that, at very bare minimum, the cost of the fuel that had been lost. That would not be unfair.
Does it bother you that the defendant in these cases, if they come with money for the poor box, they can avoid a criminal conviction?
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Chapter 2: Should businesses receive compensation for theft over charitable donations?
But I mean, in this instance, no.
But I suppose there is a wider issue, you know, that those who can afford it can use the poor box system. Those who can't do get a criminal conviction.
Yeah, and as you quite rightly pointed out, I mean, this was first highlighted back in 2004 by the Law Reform Commission, where they were very clear that there were difficulties that came from this, that some people could afford not to. And others, they also pointed out that some judges could favour certain charities or some judges could be predisposed in a certain way.
Some judges don't operate the poor system. Some operate it under a committee. Others, it's completely their game.
I was actually looking at how it's run today. It's quite loose, really, isn't it? How the decisions are made. And I know it's run very well in many places around the country. But there are no safeguards in place here when it comes to the administration of the poor box.
There are absolutely no safeguards in place because there is no law relating to it. There is an annual report provided through the court service. That is money that the information has been given to them by the various, the 23 courts around the country. But as to who operates it, how it's operated, what the I mean, is it all to be spent within the locality for local charities?
I mean, there are no rules around that. None whatsoever.
So I know you said that you don't want to see the poor box abolished altogether. That's not what you're saying. But if the defendants come in with money and that money is used to compensate the shop owner. And then you say there's associated costs that could be covered as well. Should there be nothing left really for the poor box then?
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of using the poor box system for offenders?
Absolutely. What would be wrong with that? As long as compensation was made and by compensation, I'm talking about if we suffer a drive off or a theft or shoplifting or fraudulent conversion of monies or otherwise. There is a lot of money expended in ensuring that the prosecution takes place.
There is our time, there is looking through the CCTV imaging, there is making statements, there is perhaps making provision for your staff to go to court and everything like that. So that's all time and money. That deserves to be compensated as well because if the person hadn't stolen the property, hadn't driven off, hadn't committed the fraud, we wouldn't be in that situation.
So why should the retailer or any other victim of crime, why should they suffer one bit
So do you want to see that there would be legislation in place that would set out exactly what the compensation should be? And if you can't afford to pay the compensation, you get the conviction?
Well, it's a matter for the courts to decide whether there will be a conviction or not. What we're trying to do is increase the level of oversight from zero to something that is there. And we would like to believe that even if the person says, I don't have the money, that there can be an attachment of earnings to order to them.
That at some point or other, maybe they will get a job, maybe they do have a job, but at least there is an ongoing situation that the state says, you stole this money from these people, they are entitled to be compensated, either now or into the future.
OK, so how big a problem is this? I mean, are you getting pressure from your members on how much they're losing when it comes to shoplifting?
It is most certainly, for some people, it is their most abiding cost. There are people who literally, and I mean this now literally here in the city of Dublin, there are people who have five, six, eight incidences of thefts per day. There are drive-offs every single day. There is at least one service station operator throughout this country who has a very substantial number.
And they, last year, have already said publicly that they lost ā¬1 million in drive-offs.
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Chapter 4: How do judges decide on compensation versus poor box donations?
But when the offended person or entity is a company, there is much less attempts by the state or by the judge to issue compensation for the company.
OK, well, they tell us as well that there are there's a policy review of the scheme of the bill. This bill is a 2024 bill, the criminal justice bill and conducted by the department. It's currently under consideration. And as part of that, they're looking at getting rid of the poor box and having a fair and transparent system of reparation applicable to minor offences.
And I really would love to think that this is going to happen. But during Alan Shatter's time as Minister of Justice, he announced that he was going to look at the poor box and do away with it. Charlie Flanagan did the exact same thing. And now we have it again. This needs actually, we need to see that this is going to happen.
And we need to see very clearly that the wings of the poor box are clipped.
The charities I'm sure that benefit from the poor box would be very upset if they thought that this was going to result in it being abolished because ultimately that's what you're looking at because there just won't be enough money in the pot, will there, to compensate the victims and to contribute to the poor box.
I think that the charities are most certainly in need of being assisted but is it fair that money is diverted away from victims?
Well, that is one way to look at it but I suppose if they're used to that income stream it's very difficult to replace it. Have you heard from politicians who you've lobbied why there's such a delay in putting this in place?
What's the problem? The problem is the absolute attempt to maintain this separation of the various forms of administration of justice. There has to be a case where judges are instructed to take certain ways of doing things. It can't just be only for them.
Why not make all fuel prepaid, suggests a listener? Would that not address the problem in some way?
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