WHo prosecutes, Gardai or DPP?

irishrgr

Hello all,
In an Irish court, who is the "prosecutor", the Garda or the DPP?
Watching the Justice (or lack therof) documentary last night on RTE, there was several mentions of words to the effect of "the Garda prosecuting the case" and one of the commentators recommended the Gardaí should be provided a State solicitor to help them in court.
I would have thought the role of the Gardaí is to arrest violators and bring them before the courts but the DPP is the States prosecutor. Would a Garda not collect evidence, write reports, make arrests and investigate? Then, all this get turned over to the DPP to refine the case, determine if it's worth going to court, add/drop charges then prosecute in court. Am I missing something?
Here that's pretty much how it works. In our patch we have an on call District Attorney 24/7 who I can call for advice/questions about finer legal points, potential significant cases They review our arrests to make sure it meets the legal standard, before the suspect goes before a judge for a bail hearing. The DA prosecutes in court, I can be called to give evidence, and if that looks like it's going to happen, the DA will meet with me beforehand to go over it. 
Curious....

source

The DPP prosecutes the cases but only concerns itself with serious offences. They've issued directions that Gardai can prosecute minor offences in their name.

So while the Garda is the one bringing the case, is still DPP vs Joe Bloggs.

http://www.garda.ie/Documents/User/ENGLISH_-_Role_of_the_DPP.pdf

Good outline of the roles in this pdf.

FGR

It's poor practice and should be modernised. An Post, Revenue/Customs, the RSA and Irish Rail use the State Solicitor to prosecute their cases in the district courts while gardaí are expected to take on trained solicitors/barristers in cases that, although summary, have become exceptionally technical in the modern era. It's not the fault of the garda, but the lack of training and unwillingness of the state to pay to expand the DPP to cover this function.

Other countries have a more hands on DPP who will visit scenes and lead investigations. Here the Gardaí hand the finished project to the DPP to read and make a decision on - not exactly good practice imo.

We should also introduce a public defenders office to significantly reduce the free legal aid bill - but that's a debate for another day.

irishrgr

Interesting, and yes, I agree, DPP should be prosecuting these cases.
. The role of the Gardaí is law enforcement, investigations, etc., not prosecutions. It may be a "minor" case, but still, courts are the domain of the lawyers, not coppers. That is a complete waste of Garda time. Sure, gather evidence, write the reports, and be prepared to testify in court, but the DPP needs to be doing this. Maybe if another set of eyes reviewed Garda investigations, they we wouldn't have some of the silliness that the RTE documentary talked about.  
Between inquiries, tribunals, the police authority hearings, the expression "many long years of tradition unhindered by progress" comes to mind about the Gardaí & the court system.
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