James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I certainly see a greater role for probation services, and the restorative justice elements will be a huge part of that over the coming years. I have looked at and commented on the Cornmarket Project in Wexford. There is also a project in Athy. There seem to be a number of pilot projects around restorative justice that were started back in the 1990s that perhaps were not expanded. Maybe there was not that focus on it afterwards, but it is certainly something we will see into the future.

In relation to short sentences, obviously sentences are a matter for our courts. I certainly acknowledge that to benefit from the rehabilitative services that are available in prisons, you probably have to spend at least 12 months there. It is certainly not a reason for people to spend longer in prison, but there is a challenge around short sentence in terms of people being there long enough to benefit from the services that can be made available.

The Minister, Deputy Harris, and I have established a higher education task force to look at our prisons and how we can make education available to everybody in there. That incudes looking at access to computers and that type of technology. It is something that the head of the Prison Service is very strong on. We are trying to figure out how that will look to ensure that people can have access to that information, but also that it will not be misused if they have access to the Internet or whatever, in terms of being able to contact victims. With the higher education task force, we have moved to a position whereby it is a problem that can be solved, as opposed to a reason not do to it in that respect. The task force will also look at how we ensure that people who start training or education courses in prison can seamlessly continue them when they leave. That seems to have been a major problem in our prisons for people who want to and do participate in programmes in prison but who are released before their course is finished. They do not have their certificate and have not finished the course. It is something we are very much looking at and we are coming up with solutions. Once the work of that task force is published, it will certainly provide a pathway to a lot of solutions to many of those issues, including identifying those within our prisons who have learning difficulties. As the Deputy is aware, undiagnosed learning difficulties are very common among our prisoner population. There is also the mental health task force that was set up by the Minister, Deputy McEntee. That continues to be rolled out.

Probation officers are covered under the Justice Vote. We are satisfied that there was a successful recruitment of probation officer assistants in 2023, which will help matters. However, there is no question that as in all areas, recruitment has proven to be quite challenging. It is challenging in every aspect of the public service at the moment, and it continues to be a challenge. That is not a reason not to continue to develop and roll out an expansionary role for our probation services in relation to that. Some €2 million has been made available in 2024, including an engagement with IPS services and Merchant Quay as well. As I have said, with the new restorative justice plan that we have made, I see an increased role for our probation services in the coming years.