Ms Joan Deane:

I agree with everything that has been said. While we debate the merits or demerits of electronic monitoring, we have to acknowledge we have a problem. For instance, in a recent trial where a man was convicted of murder, it turned out he had 78 previous convictions and had been out on bail when that murder occurred. Only three days prior to that murder, he had attempted a similar street attack on somebody else, which, thankfully, was unsuccessful. We have those kinds of occurrences where a breach of bail has occurred and somebody is still walking around free to commit further serious crimes.

Why do we have situations where multiple breaches of bail are allowed to happen so people are free to commit other serious crimes? As I said earlier, if a human life has been taken and somebody receives bail, that is fine, but where that bail is breached for any reason, it has to be considered a further serious offence. We need to be looking at what is happening on the ground while we debate the merits and demerits of other measures. It is happening today. Somebody out on bail will commit a serious offence and will probably get a slap on the wrist. While I am not a lawyer and cannot go into the details of what may happen, it is happening and we know this. People are being killed when it is avoidable if the law that exists is applied properly and followed up. It again may be a question of resources. If resources are the issue, we cannot consider other solutions that will take even more resources.