Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being here this afternoon. I have no issues with the Bill at all. The Minister touched on most of the relevant points when he went through the sections. My objective has been to gain an understanding of the probation services in each country and how comparable they are across Europe. We are to harmonise probation so probation may be finished in another country. Is there a mechanism to determine that the standard of probation and its implementation are the same as in Ireland? How are the probationary conditions measured from state to state? Consider the case of someone who has the remainder of a sentence suspended. Where sexual offences or offences against a child are concerned, some EU countries have very strong monitoring systems. In Ireland, we do not have sex registers. What are the agreements between the states on harmonising the implementation of the laws? Consider the example of drugs offences. What occurs if someone goes home from Ireland to Portugal, where the Irish drugs offence is not recognised? Does the individual not require any probation because the Portuguese state has completely different laws? These are technical questions on how communication occurs and how the systems are comparable. Where somebody commits a crime of a sexual nature here and returns to another European Union country with a strong sex register or programme for the rehabilitation of sex offenders that Ireland does not have, how is this managed? What are the conversations around this? Does it not matter at all if the probation services are completely different in the country to which the individual is returning home?