Ms Úna Doyle:

I thank the Deputy for her question. The majority of probation officers, which form the bulk of our professionally trained staff, are qualified social workers with a recognised qualification in social work. It is not a requirement to become a probation officer but we have been very successful in attracting people of that calibre and grade. It is certainly a preference of ours and it is the direction in which we should go given what the director has indicated in terms of social work qualification, knowledge and skill base, as well as effectiveness in engaging with offenders and motivating change.

Like much of the public sector, our overall staffing numbers had decreased over the period 2008 to approximately 2015 or 2016, as Mr. Geiran has alluded to. We are in the process of recruiting and in 2016 we were successful in running a permanent probation officer competition. We are seeing the benefits of that now with an intake. We have taken in an additional 20 probation officers since the end of last year, which is a very positive development.

In terms of service delivery and its implications, as we are a national service with a footprint in every county in the country, as there is ebb and flow in the rates of referral or the demands placed on us to respond, we are in a position where we can do so by reassigning staff across the service. That is facilitated through people with geographical transfers. To answer another of the Deputy's questions, in the main most of our staff are based in the three urban hubs, as that is where the critical mass of the population tends to be. That is in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. That said, we have 40 staffed offices nationwide. Our staff in prisons are assigned to a prison for the duration of an assignment and, for the most part, staff are based there on a full-time basis. To use the Deputy's example of the Dóchas Centre, staff assigned there would work just there. It would be the same in other prison complexes.