Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

Perhaps the Minister might expand on the European Union initiative to which he refers. Given that Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Union next year, will he seek to champion the role victims should play in sentence management? We need to re-imagine our approach to this matter. The Minister referred to re-engineering the process. There is a need to include victims in it.

Has the Minister determined whether additional resources will have to be made available to the Probation Service? In that context, he has indicated that only 150 prisoners will be involved in the scheme at any one time. This suggests the projects envisaged will be short-term in nature. Will the Minister provide some details of the kind of projects being undertaken as part of the pilot programme? I am somewhat concerned about the practicality of having 150 people at a time engaged in a scheme which will ultimately involve 1,200 people over three years.

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