Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

It is my intention and I have not softened in that respect. This is quite a complex area. In France only 20 serious sex offenders are subject to electronic monitoring. If we proceed on this, which I hope we will do in the not too distant future, we will be the first in Europe to use a global positioning service, GPS. Tagging is used extensively in the US but not so extensively in other European countries and as far as I know none of them uses GPS. We want to use this because it is more efficient. Equally, however, it is more costly. To do it for sex offenders initially would be the way to proceed, even on a pilot basis, because their numbers are small and potentially more dangerous to society and we can extend it to the wider convicted population post-release. Legislative change may be required to expand it to sex offenders. The legislation allows it to be used for ordinary criminals.

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