Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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653. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of electronic tags that have been used by the State on criminals or on people on bail in each of the past ten years; the travel restrictions that have been imposed on criminals or on people who are on bail for each of the past ten years; and the number of crimes that have been committed by people who are on bail for the past ten years. [7498/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Section 6B of the Bail Act 1997 (as amended), which provides for the use of electronic monitoring for certain persons admitted to bail, has yet to be commenced.

The Programme for Government commits to implement electronic tagging for appropriate categories of offender and work is underway to achieve this with a steering group in place made up of sectoral representatives who will be involved in delivery. Work has started on scoping out the practical operational considerations for relevant categories of offender to inform next steps.

In relation to travel restrictions that have been imposed on criminals or on people who are on bail, I have made enquiries and I am advised by the Courts Service that their system does not record travel restrictions in a way that can be reported in a tabular fashion. As such, the Courts Service does not hold complete statistical information on travel restrictions associated with individuals on bail and the statistics as requested by the Deputy are therefore not available.

The Bail Act contains robust provisions on both dealing with and pre-empting breaches of bail. Where an individual fails to comply with any bail conditions, the judge may issue a bench warrant, mandating An Garda Síochána to arrest and bring the person before the court.

Furthermore, a Garda member may immediately arrest a person without a warrant where the member has reasonable cause to suspect that that person has breached, or is about to breach, a bail condition and the member considers the arrest necessary to prevent harm to, interference with, or intimidation of a victim or witness.

In relation to the detailed information sought by the Deputy in relation to offences committed, my Department has requested this from An Garda Síochána and I will write to the Deputy once the information is available.