Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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121. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when legislation to introduce electronic tagging will be finalised; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21716/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Under the Criminal Justice Act 2006, electronic monitoring is permitted in relation to the monitoring of persons on temporary release from prison where such release is subject to certain restrictions on movement.

With respect to persons on bail, section 6B of the Bail Act 1997 (inserted by section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007) permits a court granting bail to make it a condition of bail that the person’s movements are monitored electronically so that his or her compliance with conditions of bail can be monitored. This provision, however, was never brought into force. The Criminal Justice Bill 2016 (changed from the Bail (Amendment) Bill 2016) amends section 6B so that a court will be enabled to make electronic monitoring a condition of bail only on the application of the prosecution, enabling the use of electronic monitoring to be managed and controlled. The Bill is currently before the Houses of the Oireachtas and completed Committee Stage in Dáil Éireann on 5 April 2017.

The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 amends the Schedule to the Bail Act by adding a number of the new offences created under that Act, including those relating to child sexual exploitation, to the scope of the Bail Act.

I would also like to inform the Deputy that officials in my Department are preparing provisions to introduce electronic tagging for the purpose of monitoring compliance with sex offender orders. These provisions will be included in the General Scheme of a Sex Offenders (Amendment) Bill which I intend to publish later this year.