Mr. Mark Wilson:

I will respond to a few of the questions from Deputy Joan Collins and I will try not to talk across Mr. Black's area. In respect of the question on open prisons, the review of penal policy in 2014 recommended an open prison for women. Working jointly with the Probation Service, the Prison Service proposed the development of a step-down unit for women as an alternative. The Outlook facility in Dublin is run by Focus Ireland for that purpose. It complements the Tús Nua service and the Abigail Women's Centre run by Depaul in Finglas, which equally targets referrals from the prison and probation services.

On sentences and petty crime, the Probation Service is currently managing approximately 800 members of Traveller community. One third of them are with us for assessment, one third are on community service and one third are under some form of probation order. The top five offences for which they are referred to us are theft, assault offences, public order, road traffic offences and burglary. The figure for theft sentences is higher than the non-Traveller percentile. Outside of that, the other areas are lower than the non-Traveller percentiles. Those are the key offences in respect of which we are working with members of the Traveller community.

On cultural sensitivity or bias in the context of Probation Service staff, as I mentioned in my opening address, TPI has brought in a user voice to assist with that cultural training for our staff. I will ask my colleague, Ms Doyle, to say a little more in respect of probation officer training.