Character references in court have come back under the spotlight after former TD Jim Glennon issued a character reference for Daniel Ramamoorthy.
Ramamoorthy was a former government adviser who was convicted of the sexual exploitation of a 13-year-old boy in 2017.
Last week, Ramamoorthy lost an appeal against the severity of a two years and four months' sentence imposed on him in March last year.
At the weekend, Mr Glennon confirmed that he was the TD who provided the character reference.
RTÉ Legal Affairs Correspondent Órla O'Donnell joins Behind the Story to discuss the details of the case, and why details of who gives character references are often not made public.
On the wider issue of character references, Senior Counsel Lorcan Staines said character references can carry different weight depending on the case.
"In some cases, they can be very useful, but I do think that – to a large extent – the weight that people think is attached to these references is exaggerated," he said.
"I think the reality is that in most cases, and certainly the more serious a case, the less impact a character reference will have."
Different offences
Mr Staines said the offence involved will also determine the importance of a character reference.
"Are we dealing with an offence that was a once-off or an offence that was an ongoing offence?
"Are we dealing with a violent office, are we dealing with a sexual offence?"
Mr Staines said if a case is at the low-end of the scale, involves a young person and is non-violent and non-sexual, "a character reference can be extremely important there".
Mr Staines said while there have been some changes when it comes to character references, he does not believe the general practice will change.
"I don’t think it will change… the law has changed now in terms of sexual offending: rather than writing a reference, you now have to go on affidavit," he explained.
"Of course if you don’t want to go on affidavit, you actually have to come to court to give evidence, which opens you up to cross-examination – effectively [it] makes the person really have to think twice about doing it."
Mr Staines said he believes consistency should be brought in across different courts.
"We should have consistency as much as possible across the board," he said.
"I don’t like the idea of any information being able to go into a judge at sentencing hearing that isn’t available to the public.
"Obviously from time to time you may have confidential material… but that’s in a very narrow framework.
"I think the vast majority of any information available to a judge should be available to the public."
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