Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, for coming to the House to respond on this issue on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality.

The issue I wish to raise concerns the treatment of sexual offenders in our prisons and in our communities after release. This issue was brought to my attention again last week when we had the deplorable case of two little girls of six and nine years of age in Westmeath who had been raped. This case highlighted the issue concerning sexual offenders and how we deal with them. I have been in contact with victims' groups here who believe we do not focus our attention on the rehabilitation of offenders. At any given time, there are approximately 300 sexual offenders in our prisons and we release 100 of them each year into our communities.

I acknowledge that the Minister, Deputy Shatter, has made considerable progress in this area with the introduction of the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Bill 2012, which deals with the mandatory reporting of child abuse, but we need to go further. We need to ensure that sexual offenders are properly managed within our communities. We should also provide mandatory programmes in our prisons as part of the wider approach to managing these offenders. All my comments are based on the need to protect our children. This is a child protection issue and children, rather than the offender, should be to the fore in all of our discussions on ensuring offenders do not re-offend.

An increasing body of research shows that simply imprisoning offenders is not effective in reducing the risk of re-offending on release. It has been shown that well designed evidence based rehabilitative approaches in our prisons can reduce re-offending rates among sexual offenders. This is the kernel of the issue. I do not believe we will cure sexual offenders, but mandatory programmes while they are in prison are essential, as are rehabilitative programmes on their release into communities.

The act of committing a sexual offence against a child is a heinous crime and the Legislature is morally obliged to protect children against it.