Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I thank Dr. Forde. As no one else is indicating, I will ask a few questions myself before a second round.

I found the opening statements and the debate so far very enlightening and constructive. We are looking at youth justice broadly. There are a number of objectives that I think everyone would agree on. One is that we want to reduce the numbers of young people who are engaged in crime and the causes of that happening, we want to reduce the overall levels of youth crime, and we want to reduce the numbers of young people who engage in crime reoffending. I think, although I am open to contradiction, that on all three metrics we are failing at the moment. If we move to the reasons why, the conversation could cover a myriad. We are at a point where, based on all the metrics, we have a potentially very serious issue on our hands because youth crime evolves into much greater societal issues, although one argument is it is reflective of societal issues in the first place.

My first question is for the Penal Reform Trust on the bail supervision scheme. What are the comparative rates of reoffending? The CSO figures suggest that those under 21 years have a 60% reoffending rate within 12 months of release from custody. What are the comparative numbers?