Mr. Vivian Geiran:

On Senator Ó Donnghaile's question about learning, as an organisation the Probation Service would always have an eye on what is happening internationally. Obviously, we should learn from that. On this island, North and South, we have a lot to learn from each other. In that sense, we do not have to go far. Just last week, we had an event in our Dublin headquarters where one of our colleagues from the PSNI did an interesting presentation on its local interagency hubs which are being developed to address areas of vulnerability, including sexual offending, domestic violence, safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. I was especially interested in that in the context that it showed a lot of promise in further encouraging that level of interagency co-operation. As Ms Burke said, we would like that to be put on a statutory basis under the legislation. This should also be encouraged and facilitated.

On Deputy O’Callaghan’s question, what struck me about the hubs in Northern Ireland was that, as well as managing situations and offenders we already know about, it also feeds into a preventative approach and facilitates all the agencies involved. Very often it is the police who end up at 2 a.m. on the Sunday morning dealing with a particular incident. These issues can be addressed in a pre-emptive way through these local hubs.