Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Requiring a probation officer to act as a monitor is a misunderstanding of the role of the probation and welfare service. These officers are skilled people who deal with offenders. Looking at a screen and waiting for a button to flash has nothing to do with their qualifications and experience. I am not trying to be overly ideological, but Deputy Ó Snodaigh's hard left ideology is bringing him into error. It we introduce electronic tagging it would be madness to rule that only full-time public servants could monitor it. That would make it unworkable and would represent an ineffective use of public servants' time. I do not presume to speak for probation officers but they would be alarmed if I were to say on their behalf that they would be content to sit in a room waiting for alarms to sound.

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