Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 November 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General 2014
Vote 21: Prisons
Vote 24: Department of Justice and Equality
Chapter 9: Development of Prison Accommodation in Dublin

10:00 am

Mr. Jimmy Martin:

Yes. It depends on the circumstances, but we have not done any research recently. If we have a significant number of people it is not possible to monitor them on the current basis. The systems in other countries are generally historic. Monitoring is normally contracted out to security firms, which give a report on a next-day basis of what the person did the previous day. It is not live tracking. If somebody has breached a condition of bail, he or she will have to be brought back to court and it is up to the judge to decide what to do about that breach. It is not feasible to use it in a widespread manner. It is not like in the movies where the person is being watched going around, because we would then have to have gardaí sitting in front of many screens. It is only feasible to do that in a small, select number of cases.

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