Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I assure the Deputy that I attach the highest importance to addressing and reducing the rate of repeat offending and recidivism.

My Department commissioned the first major study of prisoner re-offending from the UCD Institute of Criminology, the results of which were published in December 2006. The study found that 27.4% of released prisoners were serving a new prison sentence within one year. This rose to 39.2% after two years, 45.1% after three years, and 49.2% after four years. Recidivism was highest among property offenders and lowest for sex offenders.

These findings are in line with international experience. I understand they may be considered to fall in the mid to lower range of recidivism by international standards. While these figures are high, they still show that just over half of prisoners do not re-offend within four years of release, which compares well by international standards.

In order to reduce the rates of re-offending, it is vital that offenders, or those who come in contact with the law, are targeted at as early an age as possible. Significant progress has been made in recent years in creating a more effective youth justice system, based on principles which are set out in the Children Act 2001, as amended. The office of the Minister of State with responsibility for children has brought greater coherence to children's policy across Departments. The Irish Youth Justice Service, an executive office within my Department which is co-located in the office of the Minister of State with responsibility for children, has responsibility for developing youth justice policy and operating the children detention schools. The youth justice service is working to bring about a more effective youth justice system in which there is strong public confidence.

All the provisions of the Children Act 2001 have now been commenced and the implementation of new community sanctions, which offer the courts a number of ways of dealing with offenders in a non-custodial setting, are being rolled out throughout the country.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

The Government has allocated additional judges for the Children Court and it recently approved a juvenile justice and child protection package which provides 88 additional posts for the probation service. The Garda Commissioner has agreed to appoint 28 additional juvenile liaison officers over the next four years.

The new programme for Government contains commitments to double the number of Garda youth diversion projects to 168, to invest in the provision of appropriate detention facilities for youth offenders and to fund the implementation of a range of new community sanctions, including sanctions against the parents of offending youths which came into force last March as an alternative to detention. I recently approved the establishment of an additional 12 new projects, bringing the current total to 93 projects.

I wish to assure the House that the measures provided for under the programme for Government to deal with re-offenders, such as the expansion of the Drug Court programme, the introduction of a community payback scheme, investment in the rehabilitation of prisoners and the provision of Garda powers and resources, will be implemented.

I have dealt in my reply with some of the issues which arise directly in the area of the prevention of re-offending to which the Deputy's question refers. There is also a wide range of measures in place, many of which were discussed in the House last week, to tackle the issue of crime generally, be it committed by repeat offenders or others.

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