Ms Fíona Ní Chinnéide:

I thank the Deputy for his question. As of today, we do not know in that the latest recidivism statistics are due to be published shortly by the Central Statistics Office, CSO. The probation statistics for recidivism were published recently. Until we can compare the two we cannot say too much. I believe we are about average but it depends on the countries with which we want to compare ourselves. In Norway they were talking about the training and relationships between prison staff. In terms of prison recidivism post-release, its rate has reduced from 25% to 20%. By comparison, our rate is in the region of 45% to 47%.