Mr. Eoin Carroll:

I wish to make two quick points. First, the development of prison campuses is, in my view, a regressive step. Second, Senator Ivana Bacik referred to the community return programme. Although this seems excellent on paper, there are issues to flag. As Dr. McCullagh pointed out, there is a risk of net widening, with prisoners on temporary release being assigned a high level of supervision which is not necessarily required. There is also the concept of low-lying fruit, that is, the tendency to select those prisoners most likely to succeed in the programme rather than the more challenging candidates. As I recall, the Minister indicated at the launch of the scheme that there would be no risk to society in it. In reality, nobody can guarantee there will be no risk, but we must be prepared to take chances.