Ms Helena Kiely:

I can say that the programme is a criminal justice hub involving the Department of Justice and Equality, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Probation Service and the Legal Aid Board with a view to having information at the centre that can be both statistical and can be a real-time account of the status of a person who is before the courts or in prison. GDPR is a huge part of this and agreements have been made with all of the agencies to allow for the data modelling. We are at the modelling stage of how this would work in practice. There is an overreaching data sharing agreement that is being drafted at the moment. We are not at a stage where live data are being shared or the projects are up and running but the two projects that it will focus on to begin with are charge sheets and court outcomes, so that information can be at the centre for all agencies with relevant information. It is looking to emulate the Causeway system, which has been in operation in Northern Ireland for some time and which has been a great success in having real-time information for all agencies. That is also useful as a predictive measure for Departments on where resources will be needed.