Dr. Mary Rogan:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. The first point is about electronic monitoring and I come back to the question of what is the purpose and possible impact of it. It is not to say there is not a role for electronic monitoring in some circumstances but we must take on board the evidence of other jurisdictions where it has been in place for some time. There are many questions to ask. For example, would electronic monitoring be used as a type of "location ban" or house arrest? What would be the modality by which electronic monitoring would be used? We need much more information to be able to make a conclusion on the impact of electronic monitoring or its costs and so on.

The study also mentions other elements, such as the use of radio frequency electronic monitoring or global positioning systems, GPS, and the associated cost implications. There are several practical logistical questions that deserve much consideration before a significant step is taken and imposed. If all this has not been worked out in advance, we could run into much difficulty later. Taking direct evidence from those who run these systems in other countries would be very valuable.

We asked participants in Ireland what they thought of electronic monitoring and the impact it would have. These are people who work in the area of bail and pretrial detention every day of the week. There was no consensus at all among the group as to whether it would be good or bad. We almost equally balanced perspectives on both sides. Some participants felt it would be likely to lead to more bail being granted while others felt it would give more comfort to judges and the public. Others felt that defendants would look for it and it would be more likely to be something sought by defendants than the prosecution, which is an interesting perspective. There was consensus that the existing curfew condition and keeping mobile phones on and with credit to facilitate contact were kind of "low-tech" versions of electronic monitoring. Many participants felt they were doing the job and perhaps more could be invested in how those processes are implemented. The idea was that they were, in effect, taking the place of electronic monitoring.

The Deputy mentioned constitutional implications and we have a much longer paper that addresses some of these matters. The Director of Public Prosecutions v. Mulvey case notes that bail is not an automatic right and there is no suggestion the existing system means people must get bail. The case goes on to say it is an important aspect of the individual's constitutional right to liberty, a right that can only be restricted on limited grounds, supported by cogent evidence. If we move to a scenario where the nature of the offence charged and aspects of the person's pre-existing offending background constitute the tipping point to making the decision that a person goes to pretrial detention, questions are raised about whether we would be in conformity with that existing principle from the Mulvey case.

There was a question about the numbers in pre-trial detention and overall questions about data and what is driving increasing numbers. Before I address those I might touch on the matter of crime statistics. It has been very fairly mentioned that crime statistics are being published under reservation. In itself, it is a really regrettable state of affairs that our nation is not able to say with certainty what are the crime statistics because there are question marks about the quality of the information. I was a member of an expert group on crime statistics chaired by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, some years ago. It is critical that we invest and support our Central Statistics Office in gathering this kind of information and ensure that what is put to the public, and which has a real effect in terms of public perception and policymaking, is accurate and beyond reproach. It is really important that we know the CSO statistics are still under reservation and there are questions about whether improved accuracy in recording data might play a role too. That is not to minimise in any way the numbers we are seeing, which are worrying.

There was a question about whether the rise in pre-trial detention figures are a factor in the overall rise in the prison population. As a general point, we need much more analysis in general of what is going on and we need regular assessments of the offence types going in and the backgrounds of people going in. Is there a change in sentencing practice or is there a factor of increased crime rates or Garda activity? We just do not know and that vacuum for policymaking is very serious. I presented graphs to the committee and mentioned numbers and we are seeing rises in the numbers of people in pretrial detention. If, roughly speaking, this amounts to approximately 200 additional people per day in the prison system, there will be an effect. Overall numbers are much smaller but those for women have really increased a lot. Much assessment must be done as to why that is the case.

Deputy Clare Daly spoke about the lens through which we view these matters. The question is whether to take the road of legislation or other ways to try to do what we all want, which is to achieve safer communities and people feeling safe and that they have received justice. I return to the penal policy review group, which published in 2014. I am the chairperson of the implementation oversight group for that report.

We are not going to get the solutions we want unless we look at a whole-of-government approach to the issue of crime and offending. We need to make sure that when we bring in changes or reforms in the area of crime, offending, prisons, probation and so on, we make sure we include in those conversations health professionals and experts in health, addiction and social policy. It comes down to what lens one wants to look at these issues through. The penal policy review group would very much advocate the need for a whole-of-Government approach. I refer to the work of Dr. Ruth Barrington's Interagency Group on Co-operation for a Fairer and Safer Ireland, which is trying to examine these issues from a more interdepartmental and interagency perspective. That work needs much more support.