Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 162: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, further to Parliamentary Question No. 145 of 22 October 2008, the average period of probation time carried out. [37810/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Probation Service of my Department has responsibility for the supervision and management of Community Service Orders in accordance with the Criminal Justice (Community Service) Act 1983. As I indicated to the Deputy in my reply of 22 October last, the Community Service Scheme is the subject of a Value for Money and Policy Review by an Independent Evaluator. I can inform the Deputy that the preliminary indications from that work shows that during 2006, the average length of a CSO was 136 hours. This is equivalent to approximately 20 days of full-time attendance on Community Service for an offender. By comparison, other research dating back to 1999 found that the average length of a CSO was 141 hours. The table sets out the number of Community Service Orders supervised by the Probation Service between 1998 and 2007.