Written answers

Thursday, 13 May 2010

Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform

Electronic Monitoring

5:00 pm

Photo of Arthur MorganArthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 79: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the cost of the proposed pilot scheme to electronically tag a number of offenders; if the decision to pursue the use of electronic tags while simultaneously reducing the number of probation officers was based on new evidence in view of the fact that existing evidence from an evaluation of their use in England found that it cost twice as much to electronically tag an offender as to supervise them by a member of the Probation Service; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that private security companies that administer the electronic tagging scheme do not routinely follow up violations by individual offenders; if his further attention has been drawn to the fact that the authorities there pay private tagging companies approximately three times the actual cost of each offender monitored and electronic monitoring does not reduce re-offending. [19658/10]

Photo of Dermot AhernDermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The introduction of a pilot to test the technology used in electronic monitoring and its suitability for application in this jurisdiction is not linked in any way to Probation resources.

In relation to Electronic Monitoring I have asked my officials to examine how best we might make use of this technology. As the Deputy will be aware the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2006 allows for the introduction of electronic monitoring in this jurisdiction. Specifically under section 108, Temporary Release of Prisoners, the Minister is able to make an Order for electronic monitoring, in the context of a restriction of movement condition applying to the granting of temporary release.

The Deputy will be glad to know that the Irish Prison Service recently issued a tender document to seek expressions of interest from suppliers for the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology on a small group of offenders for a pilot period. The participants to be included in the pilot will be carefully selected having regard to the nature of the offence, public safety and overall conduct in prison and will be granted temporary release. As the tender is now with the market it would be inappropriate for me to comment on potential costs or comparisons with other jurisdictions.

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