Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank the House for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important subject. The Minister for Justice and Law Reform regrets that he is unable to be present for the debate owing to other business. I assure the House that he is determined that no opportunity will be given to convicted sex offenders to take advantage of any differences in the law and arrangements in place in the different legal jurisdictions on these islands.

I will briefly set out the legal position on convicted sex offenders who either have served a sentence or were convicted and did not receive a sentence of imprisonment. The Sex Offenders Act 2001 established a notification system, under which, in summary, a convicted sex offender is obliged to notify the Garda Síochána of where he or she resides and any change of address for more than seven days and any change of name. The Act contains provisions requiring offenders convicted in Ireland to notify the Garda when travelling abroad and, significantly, provisions requiring offenders convicted abroad who have a similar notification obligation in their own country to notify the Garda when coming to Ireland, whether coming to live or for shorter stays. The Act's provisions extend to any offenders convicted abroad of the same range of sexual offences who enter the State, including from Northern Ireland.

Persons convicted of sexual offences are also required to inform their employers or any prospective employers of their convictions, where a necessary and regular part of their work consists mainly of the person having unsupervised access to or contact with a child or children or a mentally impaired person or persons. Under the Act, sex offenders released from prison can be subject to supervision and other restrictions. For example, the Act introduced a system for the supervision of sex offenders after their release from prison. Post-release supervision orders allow for court sanctioned supervision of offenders after their custodial sentence has expired.

The Act is modelled on similar systems in other common law jurisdictions and, in particular, owing to our common travel arrangements, is closely aligned to the system in the United Kingdom. The Minister is very much in favour of a greater approximation of the laws north and south of the Border, in particular on the operation of the respective notification systems in order that sex offenders will not gain any advantage in living on or visiting either side of the Border. The notification period for sex offenders convicted in our neighbouring jurisdictions has been reduced from 14 days to three. The Department of Justice and Law Reform is developing legislative proposals to bring the notification requirement in this jurisdiction - currently seven days - into line with that in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Consideration is also being given to what additional information offenders might be required to give to the Garda in the context of notification requirements for the sex offenders register and to revising the process of applying for a sex offender order. A senior Garda officer can apply for such an order against any sex offender whose behaviour in the community gives the Garda reasonable cause for concern that an order is necessary to protect the public from serious harm from him or her. The Department is being assisted in this review of the legislation by a number of agencies, including my office, the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, and the Garda.

All convicted sex offenders are monitored by the sex offender management and intelligence unit which is part of the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, NBCI. The unit is supported by nominated Garda inspectors in each Garda division who are responsible for the monitoring of sex offenders in their division. When the Garda becomes aware that a sex offender has left or is intending to leave the State, the unit ensures the relevant law enforcement agency in the country of destination is informed. When the Garda becomes aware that a sex offender is entering the State, it will make every effort to ensure he or she is aware of his or her obligations under the Act at the earliest possible opportunity. The Garda is particularly aware of the importance of knowing the level of risk posed by individual sex offenders and it therefore has trained a substantial number of gardaí in a number of assessment tools which are used extensively to assess the level of risk of all convicted sex offenders. This training is ongoing. In addition, a pilot scheme is being jointly run in a number of Garda divisions by the Garda and the probation and welfare service to facilitate the inter-agency risk management of sex offenders. These local sex offender risk assessment and management, SORAM, committees engage with other relevant services, such as the HSE child protection services, in order that the risk posed to the community by convicted sex offenders is reduced as far as possible.

The Garda is developing further training in assessing and managing the risk posed to the community by sex offenders. A number of gardaí have been trained at the Garda College as trainers to facilitate the Garda Síochána in developing its own risk assessment training capability. Steps are also being taken to develop this training capability further. Probation officers work closely with the Garda and other partner agencies to ensure the compliance of the offender with supervision in the interests of community safety. In conjunction with the Garda and others, probation officers by and large successfully engage with the offenders concerned and ensure their compliance through ongoing motivation and monitoring. To assist in its supervision of sex offenders, the probation and welfare service, in partnership with the Granada Institute, runs the Lighthouse treatment programmes for sex offenders under its supervision.

In 2009 the Minister for Justice and Law Reform published a detailed discussion document on the management of convicted sex offenders. This document was prepared by a high level group involving the Department, the Garda, the Irish Prison Service and the probation and welfare service and which examined the current arrangements in place for the management of sex offenders with a view to strengthening inter-agency co-operation and further enhancing public protection and safety. Their remit included a review of the procedures and legislation relating to the assessment, monitoring and supervision of convicted sex offenders. A summary report on the views received as part of the consultation process, along with responses from the Department, was published on the Department's website last month.

In 2009 the Minister announced a new policy on the management of sex offenders in prison. The policy document is available on the website of the Irish Prison Service. The policy is aimed at bringing about changes in offenders' lives that reduce risk of re-offending and enhance public protection. It forms an integral part of the wider range of interventions by criminal justice and community-based agencies. In addition, a new programme of group interventions for sex offenders was introduced in January 2009. The programme, Building Better Lives, allows more responsive and flexible delivery to a greater number of offenders than heretofore. The new treatment programme will ensure all sex offenders serving sentences of one year or more will have access to appropriate treatment. This new programme replaced the sex offender programme which ran from 1994 to 2008. A comprehensive range of services are available to sex offenders and any willing participant can be facilitated within the range of therapeutic interventions. These comprise one-to-one interventions, group interventions, community-based services and interventions available to prisoners generally. Therapeutic interventions with sex offenders are delivered primarily through the psychology service of the Irish Prison Service. Interventions by community-based services in 2009 include motivational enhancement groups provided by the Granada Institute in the Midlands and Wheatfield prisons and interventions with young sex offenders provided by the Northside Inter-Agency Project, NIAP, in St. Patrick's Institution.

The Irish Prison Service is testing the use of the global positioning system, GPS, on a small number of prisoners - about 20 - who are being given temporary release with electronic monitoring. These prisoners, none of whom is a sex offender, are carefully selected having regard to a range of criteria, including the nature of the offence, public safety and overall conduct in prison. The test phase began in August 2010 and is due to run until the end of the year, at which time it will be evaluated to assess its viability in terms of cost and other considerations as a tool in the management of offenders.

The discussion document on the management of convicted sex offenders put forward the possibility of using GPS electronic monitoring technology to monitor higher risk convicted sex offenders for the first six months following the completion of their prison sentences and their release back to the community. In the consultative process following its publication, the majority view expressed was that electronic monitoring of sex offenders would be of very limited value, although the view was also expressed that it could be of value in a limited number of particular cases as part of a broader plan for the management of this particular cohort in the community. The Minister intends to explore further the possibility of making legislative provision for the use of electronic monitoring in specific circumstances. This consideration has begun.

The Government attaches great importance to the continued development of co-operation at all levels between policing and criminal justice agencies North and South, ranging from co-operation between police officers locally, policy co-ordination at official level, co-operation between institutions, the exchange of best practice to ministerial contacts and oversight. The two Ministers, Deputy Dermot Ahern and Mr. David Ford, MLA, and their officials meet regularly, both formally under the intergovernmental agreement on co-operation on criminal justice matters and informally. An intergovernmental agreement on North-South co-operation on criminal justice matters was signed in July 2005. A new agreement was signed in April 2010 to ensure the provisions of the 2005 agreement would remain in place following the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Under the agreement, the two Ministers meet regularly to discuss criminal justice matters of mutual interest or concern to the two jurisdictions and consider the scope for, and develop plans to achieve, more effective co-operation and co-ordination on criminal justice matters between the two jurisdictions. A working group comprising representatives of the Department of Justice and Law Reform, the Northern Ireland Department of Justice and criminal justice agencies from both jurisdictions supports the ministerial meetings, takes forward current co-operation and identifies areas in which co-operation could be enhanced or initiated.

Among the areas in which formal co-operation is taken forward is registered sex offenders. A project advisory group, jointly led by the Garda and the PSNI and including representatives of the two justice Departments and the probation services, meets regularly. The group evaluates the potential for sharing information, examines the registration criteria in both jurisdictions for sex offenders and identifies areas for further co-operation. As part of their ongoing co-operation, the Garda and the PSNI examine how the means of transmitting information to each other and the training given might be improved. I commend the Garda Síochána and the PSNI on their adoption of positive measures to improve the flow of information and expertise between the two jurisdictions.

It was in the context of these arrangements that the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Under-Secretary of State at the UK's Home Office signed in November 2006 at Hillsborough a memorandum of understanding on information sharing arrangements between Ireland and the UK relating to sex offenders. This was negotiated between the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Home Office, with input from the Northern Ireland Office. It relates to information about persons travelling between Ireland and the UK and who are subject to sex offender notification requirements in their own jurisdiction. It therefore covers sex offenders travelling between Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. The purpose of the memorandum is to facilitate the sharing of information of this type between the Garda, the PSNI and police forces in Britain to protect the public from the risks presented by sex offenders and to investigate serious sexual offences. It covers all information necessary to achieve these purposes. As a result of the memorandum, the exchange of such information between the Garda Síochána, the PSNI and British police forces, which has been taking place for some time, is on a formal footing.

The memorandum of understanding will be underpinned by the planned changes to legislation I referred to earlier. It is also intended that a statutory obligation will be placed on the Garda Commissioner and the director of the probation and welfare service to establish arrangements to assess and manage the risk posed by convicted sex offenders and to share that information with one another. Such information may also be shared with the relevant authority in another jurisdiction in accordance with the terms of any written agreement or understanding for the reciprocal exchange of the information. Subsequently in 2008, an agreement for the sharing of personal data in the investigation of sexual offences and the monitoring of sex offenders was signed between the Garda and the PSNI. The agreement provides for the sharing of personal information through single points of contact in both services and conforms to the data protection legislation in place in both jurisdictions. The Garda sex offender management and intelligence unit is the single point of contact within the Garda. Regular meetings take place between Garda management within the unit and their counterparts within the PSNI. These meetings cover a range of issues relating to the management of convicted sex offenders.

Given the shared land border with Northern Ireland and the common travel area with Britain, these agreements greatly facilitate the exchange of information relating to the movements of sex offenders and the investigation of sex related crimes. The progress made in the cross-Border monitoring of sex offenders has gone well beyond discussions and there is an excellent relationship between the Garda and the PSNI in the management of sex offenders. This is evident from the recent arrest of sex offenders who had travelled to this jurisdiction from Northern Ireland in breach of their notification requirements. The exchange of information between both organisations was instrumental in effecting these arrests. The nominated Garda inspectors in the Border divisions have been attending multi-agency meetings in neighbouring counties in Northern Ireland as a matter of course.

The cross-Border relationship regarding the management of sex offenders is not limited to the Garda and the PSNI. Excellent relationships also exist between the probation services in both jurisdictions which ensures effective communication is maintained regarding sex offenders who move between the two jurisdictions. All these agencies are examining further ways in which they work together, including examining means for the pooling of resources to assist in delivering cost-efficient training to personnel in the various agencies in the two jurisdictions. A group has also carried out work to examine current arrangements for returning sex offenders who travel to the other jurisdiction in breach of the conditions of their release or notification requirements, to identify any weaknesses in arrangements for their return to face court sanctions and to make recommendations for improvements where necessary. The group's conclusions were reassuring. It found that the number of individuals who cross the Border in breach of their requirements is small and that the co-operation between the police forces in regard to such cases is exemplary. Nevertheless, Ministers in Dublin and Belfast are determined to ensure our two criminal justice systems are as co-ordinated as possible in tackling such cases. The proposed legislative changes I have outlined represent one step along this road. These will support the information-sharing provisions in place.

We have strong and effective legislation in place. We must ensure, however, that we never become complacent. Work is ongoing, therefore, on strengthening and harmonising the legislation in effect in both jurisdictions to the greatest extent possible in order that sex offenders cannot take advantage of differences between the provisions in place. I also believe the formal and informal arrangements in operation between the two parts of our island and with Britain are working efficiently in order that offenders are monitored and effective action is taken quickly, if that becomes necessary.