John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Purcell has stated these programmes have had a considerable effect on the recidivism rate. Given that a study of the programmes in which we are investing €10.3 million has not been conducted in the past ten years, surely we need to analyse them to ascertain how effective they are? All of these organisations keep track of the people who avail of their programmes and each of them will, therefore, have statistics. We have all read reports on the success the Scandinavian countries have achieved in this area. I do not know if there is anything more scientific that could be done to bolster our belief and faith in investing in this area.