Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 54: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the costs of the proposed electronic tagging of sex offenders; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39464/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, Part 10 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2006 provides for the introduction of electronic monitoring in this jurisdiction and I have made the relevant order commencing the provisions in the context of a restriction of movement condition applying to the granting of temporary release.

I am glad to tell the Deputy and the House that the Irish Prison Service is currently testing the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) Electronic Monitoring on a small number of prisoners who are being carefully selected having regard to a range of criteria including the nature of the offence, public safety and overall conduct in prison and will be given temporary release. The test phase began in August 2010 and is due to run until Christmas at which time it will be evaluated to assess its viability on cost and other considerations as a tool in the management of offenders.

As the Deputy will be aware I published my Discussion Document on the Management of convicted sex offenders in January, 2009 which, inter alia, put forward the possibility of using GPS electronic monitoring technology to monitor higher risk convicted sex offenders for the first 6 months following the completion of their prison sentences and their release back to the community. In the consultative process following the publication of this significant document 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. As I indicated in the summary report and response to the Discussion Document published on my Department's website on 11th October, 2010 I intend to explore further the possibility of making legislative provision for the use of Electronic Monitoring in specific circumstances. This consideration has now begun.