Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

I am shocked by the Minister's response. The issue of electronic tagging has already being debated during the Criminal Justice Act 2006. Amendments at the time, some of which I was involved with, provided for a process whereby, on a post-release basis from custody, a judge could order a criminal to be electronically tagged for a certain period. Apparently nothing whatever has been done by the Minister to implement the provisions dealing with electronic tagging already in place under the last Bill covering this area. Since the last Bill was enacted I have pushed to extend its provisions to cover giving a judge the option to release a person on bail subject to electronic monitoring. It was not included in the earlier proposal from the Minister but it is included in the Bill, about which I am delighted, although I wonder why he included it. Was it solely because I proposed it and to stop me giving out about it——

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