Executive Summary
Victims of crime can benefit considerably from participating in restorative justice[i] and have a legal right to receive information about the available services in Ireland.[ii] Yet, it seems that many victims still do not receive enough information to determine whether restorative justice is right for them, with just 136 restorative processes involving victims in 2024.[iii] As provision expands,[iv] it is crucial to evaluate how victims are informed about restorative justice to ensure that their right to information is consistently realised.
Criminal justice and restorative justice services have long identified this as a policy area in need of review, as most victims remain unaware of restorative justice, and restorative justice providers often struggle to contact victims, even when a case is referred. Current processes result in the inefficient use of Garda, Probation Service and restorative justice providers’ resources, and mean that many victims who could benefit from participating in restorative justice cannot access the service in practice.
The VICINFO Project aims to help criminal justice, restorative justice and victim support organisations to enhance the ways that victims of crime are informed about restorative justice in Ireland. The research involved:
- A request for information to EU justice ministries, a literature review, and interviews with six experts to understand the challenges and identify countries with innovative processes.
- Interviews with 25 people from justice ministries, criminal justice agencies and restorative justice and victim support services in five jurisdictions we identified as having innovative processes: Belgium, Catalonia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Northern Ireland.
- Three focus groups with ten restorative justice service managers, criminal justice strategy and policy leads, and data protection experts in Ireland to discuss what we learned.
This paper draws on these data to propose 1) a set of questions to help design a system that realises victims’ right to information, and 2) three actions on which Irish colleagues could collaborate to realise victims’ right to information relating to restorative justice.
What does the existing research tell us?
The European research on restorative justice allows us to draw several conclusions:
- Victims of any crime could potentially benefit from participating in restorative justice.[v]
- Most victims do not know what restorative justice is, or that there may be a service they can access in their area.[vi]
- Victims would rather be offered restorative justice and decline to participate, than not be offered the information and the opportunity to decide whether it is right for them.[vii]
- Since the EU Victims’ Rights Directive 2012 established minimum standards on rights and supports for victims, many countries placed a disproportionate burden on the police by making them responsible for informing victims about their rights.[viii]
- People without restorative justice training may struggle to provide full information about it, given the variations in what participation can mean and the questions victims have.[ix]
- Ideally, victims receive information about restorative justice from the professionals who would deliverit.[x] However, services generally cannot contact victims directly to provide this information because of narrow interpretations of GDPR.[xi]
Victim Support Europe, the leading European umbrella organisation that advocates on behalf of all victims of crime and victim support services, argues that failing to provide victims with full information about their rights can delay referrals and causes secondary victimisation.[xii] Solving this requires us to consider how criminal justice and restorative justice bodies could collaborate to ensure that all victims receive full information about restorative justice. The solution must be resource efficient for these bodies, and comply with both data protection law and the applicable law governing victims’ rights.
What does a system that realises the right to information look like?
Based on this research, we have identified five questions that should inform the design of a system aiming to realise victims’ right to information about restorative justice:
- What information is provided? Do all victims receive full information about restorative justice that clarifies how it works, and ensures that their expectations about the process, outcomes and safeguards align with what the service provides?
- Who receives information? Do all victims receive information about restorative justice?
- When do they receive information? Is the information continuously provided to victims – including at first contact, at the point when they could access the service, and at times in the future when they might be ready to access restorative justice?
- How is the information provided? Can victims talk about it directly with someone who can answer all the questions they have about the services available?
- Who provides the information? Is it provided by specialists trained to support victims to understand the full complexity, practicalities and aims of restorative justice?
We argue that realising the right to information requires a system that satisfies the five F.A.C.T.S. criteria: Full information about restorative justice should be provided to All victims, Continuously offered throughout all stages of the criminal justice process and provided in a way that enables victims to Talk it through with Specialists.
Current practice in Ireland
In Ireland, victims can receive information on restorative justice in one of three ways:
- The Garda Victim Information Booklet includes a definition of restorative justice and a link to the Probation Service’s general website. However, this Booklet omits information about how restorative justice works and how victims can access or contact services.[xiii]
- If a Court refers a case to restorative justice, restorative justice providers cannot contact the victim unless: 1) they can identify the Garda in charge of the case; 2) the Garda then agrees to contact the victim to ask for permission to pass on their contact details; and, 3) the victim agrees. This is an inefficient use of Garda resources and means that victims often do not receive full information or discuss the service with a specialist.
- If a child receives a caution, the Garda delivering the caution can offer restorative justice if this is recommended by the Garda National Youth Diversion Bureau.
Under our current approach, therefore, a minority of victims receive partial information once and cannot discuss it with specialists, falling short of the F.A.C.T.S. criteria. This is reflected in the low Irish restorative justice caseloads. Directly comparable datasets are not readily available, but estimates from the forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Restorative Justice suggest Belgium, Catalonia and the Netherlands facilitate around 11,000, 4,000 and 3,000 restorative processes, respectively,[xiv] with victims annually. The comparable figure in Ireland is likely below 200 – even accounting for missing data.
A 2019 mapping exercise[xv] funded by the Department of Justice drew on research that explored take-up rates elsewhere to estimate that at least 5,600 victims in Ireland may participate in restorative justice annually, if it were offered in every case. In other words, thousands of victims who may wish to participate in restorative justice and have a right to receive information about the services available cannot access restorative justice in practice under Ireland’s current approach.
Proposals to enhance collaboration in Ireland
We propose three steps on which criminal justice, restorative justice and victim support bodies could collaborate to realise victims’ right to restorative justice information:
Step 1: Develop and distribute specialist written information to all victims
Restorative justice providers could collaboratively write a victim information letter, and cooperate with the Gardaí, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutors, and victim support organisations to help them provide it to every victim, or use it in another way to help them inform victims about restorative justice. The letter could also be published on the Garda website and internal portal and circulated to Garda Victim Service Offices, Family Liaison Officers, Senior Investigating Officers, prosecutors and victim services.
This mirrors Belgium, where restorative justice providers wrote an informational letter for victims with which they are provided at each stage of the justice process. This would ensure that all victims receive full, specialist information, and details of how to contact the relevant restorative justice providers, whenever they interact with a criminal justice agency or victim support service.
This requires a variation in some providers’ Service Level Agreements permitting victim self-referrals, and the establishment of a mechanism to provide suspects/perpetrators with information about restorative justice in cases where victims choose to self-refer.
Step 2: Create single points of contact for restorative justice in An Garda Síochána
Instead of restorative justice providers contacting the Garda in charge of the case every time an offender is referred to restorative justice, restorative justice providers and An Garda Síochána could collaborate to identify and train ‘single points of contact’ for the restorative justice providers to seek victims’ contact details. These Gardaí may be based in Victim Service Offices or hold other roles, depending on offence type. The additional training would enable them to discuss restorative justice with victims when an offender is referred to restorative justice and ask their consent to pass their contact details to a restorative justice provider. This will remove the undue burden on individual Gardaí to play this role, enabling a more efficient use of Garda resources, while ensuring that the legal obligation on Gardaí to inform victims is fully met by a trained specialist. It would also facilitate continuity in interagency collaboration when Garda personnel change.
This mirrors Denmark, where each police area has one restorative justice specialist who informs victims about restorative justice when an offender is referred, seeking consent to pass victims’ contact details to a restorative justice provider. As these specialists are police officers or staff with access to police databases, they can also proactively contact victims about restorative justice and make a referral with their consent.
Step 3: Pass legislation or a statutory instrument to support data sharing
An amendment to community sanctions, victim rights or restorative justice legislation, or a ministerial regulation under s.38 of the Data Protection Act 2018, could be passed to clarify that it is in the public interest to process victims’ contact details so that victims can access restorative justice and other support services. Accompanied by appropriate cybersecurity and data protection measures and protocols, this will allow for all victims’ contact details to be shared with designated restorative justice/victim support services, who would take over responsibility from Gardaí to inform victims about certain rights.
This reflects the Dutch model where ministerial regulations allow for victims to opt out (not opt in) to the police passing their contact details to victim support services so that the latter may contact victims with information about their rights. Similarly, in Northern Ireland, legislation enables the police and prosecution services to pass victims’ contact details to Victim Support and the probation service, respectively. This gives victims the chance to receive information and specialist support by phone. Victim Support Europe favours this model,[xvi] arguing that ethical data sharing frameworks prevent secondary victimisation by providing greater access to information and services
Conclusion and next steps
The right of victims to receive information about restorative justice is not being realised in Ireland. This research suggests that policymakers and practitioners could collaborate to develop new approaches drawing on research and other countries’ innovations. This could have the added benefit of supporting ongoing work to improve interagency data sharing and collaboration more broadly, readying Ireland for compliance with a revised Victims’ Rights Directive. Core actors include the Garda Síochána, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Probation Service, Victim Liaison Officers’ Network, Department of Justice, and restorative justice and victim support providers.
We propose that a national working group be convened with all these actors to discuss how best to collaborate to realise victims’ right to information about restorative justice. This group could develop an action plan that outlines the data governance frameworks and interagency collaboration necessary to facilitate victims’ access to information and restorative justice. Meanwhile, this could be supplemented by regional collaborations that aim to enhance local processes, within existing resources and policies.
This publication is based on research conducted with the financial support of Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland under Grant Number NF/2024/11681. Restorative Justice Services are the Civic Society Partner for this project.
[a] Associate Professor in Criminology, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology
[b] Research Assistant in Restorative Justice, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology, and Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
[i] Shapland, J., Robinsons, G., & Sorsby, A. (2011). Restorative Justice in Practice: Evaluating What Work for Victims and Offenders, Abingdon: Routledge.
[ii] Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017, s.7 and s.26.
[iii] Marder, I. (2025). Restorative justice referrals increase, provision expands, in 2024. Available at: https://restorativejustice.ie/2025/09/07/restorative-justice-referrals-increase-provision-expands-in-2024/ [Accessed 15/10/2025].
[iv] Probation Service (2025). Expressions of Interest: Restorative Justice – Regional Expansion. Available at: https://www.probation.ie/en/PB/Pages/WP24000028 [Accessed 15/10/2025].
[v] Shapland, J., Robinsons, G., & Sorsby, A. (2011). Restorative Justice in Practice: Evaluating What Work for Victims and Offenders, Abingdon: Routledge.
[vi] Hagemann, O., & Emerson, G. (2020). Victim-initiated restorative justice. In: J. Joseph and S. Jergenson (Eds.), An International Perspective on Contemporary Developments in Victimology, Cham: Springer.
[vii] Banwell-Moore, R. (2023). Just an ‘optional extra’ in a ‘victim toolkit’? The culture, mechanisms and approaches of criminal justice organisations delivering restorative justice in England and Wales. International Review of Victimology, 29(2), 217-235.
[viii] European Commission. (2023). Impact Assessment Report – Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council Amending Directive 2012/29/EU Establishing Minimum Standards on the Rights, Support and Protection of Victims of Crime. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A52023SC0246 [Accessed 15/10/2025].
[ix] Shapland, J., Burn, D., Crawford, A., & Gray, E. (2020). From victimisation to restorative justice: developing the offer of restorative justice. International Journal of Restorative Justice, 3(2), 194-214.
[x] Laxminarayan, M. (2014). Accessibility and Initiation of Restorative Justice. Available at: https://www.euforumrj.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/accessibility_and_initiation_of_rj_website_0.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2025].
[xi] Hein, L. (2021). Position Paper on the Evaluation of the Restorative Justice Provisions of the Victims’ Rights Directive. Available at: https://www.euforumrj.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/European_Forum_for_Restorative_Justice-evaluation_of_RJ_in-the_VRD.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2025].
[xii] Victim Support Europe. (2020). Victim Support and Data Protection: Some Concerns and Proposed Solutions for Victim Supporters. Available at: https://victim-support.eu/wp-content/files_mf/1614696318VSEDataProtectionpaper.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2025]; Nišević, M., & Ivanković, A. (2025). Secondary victimisation through data protection: balancing victim privacy and support in the EU legal framework. International Review of Victimology, online first.
[xiii] An Garda Síochána. (2022). An Garda Síochána Victim Information. Available at: https://www.garda.ie/en/victim-services/garda-victim-service/victim-information-booklet-september-2022.pdf [Accessed 10/15/2025].
[xiv] Dünkel, F., Lehmkuhl, M., & Pruin, I. (Eds.). Restorative Justice in Penal Matters in Europe (2nd Ed.), Forum Verlag Godesberg: Mönchengladbach (Forthcoming).
[xv] Marder, I. (2022). Mapping restorative justice and restorative practices in criminal justice in the Republic of Ireland. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 70, 1-11.
[xvi] Victim Support Europe. (2020). Victim Support and Data Protection: Some Concerns and Proposed Solutions for Victim Supporters. Available at: https://victim-support.eu/wp-content/files_mf/1614696318VSEDataProtectionpaper.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2025].