Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Yes. I am convinced that we need to give reassurances that such a system will work and the proposal in this amendment is a way of doing that. It would give some imperative to the Minister if he were to provide for this in legal terms in that we should have some follow up on it because it appears there has not been any such follow up. The Minister said his officials met Home Office officials last year and he is not aware of anything happening on this since then. Clearly, very little, if anything, has happened since the 2004 Act came into force last year. The notion of extending it to other categories, to bail applicants, when we have done nothing about last year's category, post-release persons, seems to be window dressing. That is reality as I see it. Therefore, I am pressing my amendment.

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