Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

On the very first occasion on which I, as Minister for Justice and Equality, attended a meeting of the Council of Ministers I raised the issue of the victims of crime. Commissioner Reding has produced a proposal which is under consideration by the technical committees and which was the subject of an initial discussion at a meeting of the Council of Ministers. In the context of the forthcoming Irish Presidency, I have made it clear that there will be two major priorities in the justice area, the first of which is to substantially advance across Europe the project relating to the victims of crime. If we do not manage to complete the putting in place of the proposed legal provision in this regard, at the very least we will progress it to a very advanced stage in order that it will come into play at some point during 2013.

The second issue is to prioritise the seizure of criminal assets. On the resources issue, I am perfectly satisfied the Probation Service will have the resources available to it for this particular project. There are several individuals under existing legislation currently engaged in community service. The Probation Service, under the leadership of Michael Donnellan who heads up the Prison Service, was able to make the arrangements to operate the pilot programme with 85 prisoners. I do not have major concerns that this will give rise to any issues. Provision of this programme is, in fact, a saving to taxpayers. Instead of appropriate prisoners who pose no risk to the community being kept in jail for an extended period, they will be released from prison and be under the supervision of the Probation Service while doing community work to the benefit of local communities.

There is a double plus in this. While it will impose some additional obligations on the Probation Service, it will reduce the costs to the Prison Service of keeping people in the prison system in circumstances where it no longer serves a purpose. This project will be very carefully rolled out. It will be as carefully rolled out as was the pilot project. Within the Prison Service, those engaged in the project and the director general of the Prison Service are aware of my views to ensure no individual who poses a risk to the community is released under this project. There will be some individuals who will not have any possibility of being engaged in this project. I believe we have to start doing things differently, and that involves not just this project.

The media attention of this project has been interesting. It has been misrepresented as suddenly releasing 1,200 people from our Prison Service. What everyone is losing sight of is that we release a substantial number of people every year from our Prison Service, having completed three quarters of their sentence because they automatically get 25% remission. We need to do things more intelligently, reduce expenditure where we can, benefit communities and re-equip individuals to work within their communities. The great benefit of the structured release system is that it is envisaged that it would not just deal with community service. Part of the condition of the release will be that, where necessary, the individual will co-operate with the psychiatric services where assistance is needed or engage with supports with regard to drug abuse or alcohol addiction. It is envisaged this will be a structured temporary release programme that is substantially better than what we have had previously.

I must apologise that I cannot take the next item. My good colleague, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, will deal with it because I am supposed to be in the Seanad at 4 o'clock for a Private Members' Bill.

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