Cuirim fáilte romhaibh go léir. I know a number of members have a series of engagements that they have to come and go from. Apologies have been received from Deputies Kelly and Brabazon. As usual, I remind members to turn off their mobile phones or switch them to flight mode.

The purpose of today's meeting is an engagement with the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, along with the Probation Service in relation to the operation of the Probation Service and other related matters. On behalf of the committee, I welcome our guests to the meeting. They include Dr. Ciara O'Connell, principal officer of criminal policy in the Department, as is Ms Mary O'Regan. Ms Sarah Kennelly is principal officer for criminal governance within the Department. Representing the Probation Service are Ms Fíona Ní Chinnéide and Ms Olivia Keaveney, deputy directors. The format of the meeting is that we will invite an opening statement of two to three minutes or thereabouts. We will then call on members of the committee in the order in which they indicate to me to put their questions. At that point, we will have a rotation in terms of initial questions, and hopefully allow a second round as well.

Before I invite opening statements, I need to advise the following in relation to parliamentary privilege: witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or her or it identifiable or otherwise engage speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with such direction.

I welcome our guests again and invite Ms O'Regan to deliver an opening statement.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss the work being done to more effectively rehabilitate those engaged in crime, divert people from criminal activity and keep communities safer. The Probation Service is one of the primary agencies working with the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, the Irish Prison Service, An Garda Síochána, Tusla and many more organisations on measures to reduce the obstacles to effective rehabilitation and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

The Probation Service works with more than 17,000 individuals every year to improve their long-term outcomes, including more than 750 young people.

Comprising more than 500 staff based in 35 community-based offices with a presence in every county nationwide, and with staff working in all 13 prisons, the Probation Service is the lead agency responsible for the assessment and management of offenders in the community.

Budget 2026 allocated a 13% increase in funding to allow the Probation Service to increase use of supervised community sanctions in the criminal courts, expand restorative justice services and expand supervised temporary release schemes nationally. Additional staff have also been sanctioned.

The Probation Service funds and collaborates with 60 community based organisations, CBOs, to provide a range of supports, education and employment opportunities and therapy to persons subject to probation supervision targeted at addressing factors linked to risk of reoffending.

The Probation Service has also established the social inclusion and reintegration unit to support work in addressing the root causes of offending - social and health factors, including low educational attainment, substance misuse, homelessness, poor mental health, trauma, unemployment, and poverty.

A number of studies undertaken on behalf of the Probation Service in relation to those subject to supervision have identified the clear association between substance misuse and offending behaviour. The Probation Service is a tier 1 service, whose primary role is to encourage substance misusers to engage with and avail of treatment services.

When it comes to diverting young people from criminal behaviours, and offering rehabilitative opportunities when they come into contact with the justice system, the Probation Service, Department of justice and An Garda Síochána play a central role in implementing the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027. At the centre of the strategy are the 94 youth diversion projects, which are funded as part of an overall funding and total investment in youth justice initiatives this year to €43 million. The Probation Service is a key partner to the operation of the Department's youth diversion projects, YDPs, and plays a key role in the delivery of youth justice projects catering to harder-to-reach, serious and prolific young offenders. One of these is the Greentown Programme, which aims to disrupt the grooming of children into network-related criminal activity by adults and provides children with meaningful and practical routes out of these networks.

The Probation Service also play a key role in facilitating alternatives to prison. The Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 includes a number of amendments to the community service Act 1983 to encourage greater use of community service orders, CSOs.

Additionally, the Department is leading a cross-agency project to introduce electronic monitoring for specific categories of individuals. The pilot is expected to be operational in 2026 and will focus on individuals on temporary release nationally and those admitted to bail.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today. My colleagues and I are happy to discuss any of these topics with the committee.

I propose we have an opening round of seven-minute interactions. Senator Ruane was the first to indicate.

I thank Ms O'Regan for the presentation. I have a few questions. Whoever feels most appropriate to answer is fine, whether it is the Probation Service or the Department. I might ask all my questions at once, to save time on the back and forth.

I am wondering about the resourcing of the CSOs and the application of the new legislation, what type of resourcing is needed and what gap is there. I would also like a comment from the Probation Service on what impact the electronic monitoring will have on its functions in ensuring that where a community sanction can be imposed, people will not being monitored in place of what would be a community sanction without electronic monitoring. Will they comment on how those two intersect?

Has there been any progress on the bail support scheme, BSS, for women separate to the transfer of oversight of the youth bail support scheme to probation? How is that working in practice?

Is there an updated figure for CSOs. A figure was quoted in the past on potential savings in relation to community sanctions versus prison. Is there a concrete figure for that? I read previously that it was a 10% saving. I do not know what that translates to in monetary terms.

The number quoted was a 10% increase in those referred to restorative justice each year. Is the Department on track for that? What is needed to make restorative justice much more embedded in our systems in Ireland, not only within the justice system itself but within the psyche of people in terms of its benefits right across the types of crimes that are committed and maybe not only the more lower-level ones? A little insight on that would be great.

In relation to the resourcing of CSOs, some additional budget has gone into the Probation Service this year. I do not know if Ms Kennelly wants to mention the figures on it. It is a 13% increase overall to the Probation Service but some of that is taking account of the fact that there will be some increased activity around community service orders. I do not know if Ms Ní Chinnéide wanted to say anything else on that particular aspect.

We are looking at bail support very closely. It is a discrete piece of work but it is something we are quite supportive of. We feel there is real merit in it. We are at the early stages of scoping it out.

I will reply in order. In terms of resourcing CSOs, it is a sanction that is currently underutilised. We are working hard towards maximising their potential in a few different ways. One is the Minister for justice launched our three-year action plan, Community Service: New Directions, on 10 April 2025. That is moving us towards a restructuring of community service nationally into four regions. Our goal here is to improve the consistency of the delivery of community service, to improve awareness by the courts, by the Judiciary, by the-----

I am sorry; I meant to say "community-based sanctions". Are they separate or are they rolled into the one?

I am sorry. The Senator said, "community-based sanction", so more general.

It was my fault. I had CSO in my head but community-based sanctions is what I meant to ask.

Is it a more general question about all of our different community-based sanctions or the legislation?

The legislation.

That will increase from 240 to 480 the maximum number of hours for CSOs and will increase the obligation on courts go consider community service in lieu of a sentence of 24 months - up from 12 months. It is important to emphasise that currently there is no maximum limit that a community service order can be handed down to.

In terms of preparation for that legislation, which the Probation Service welcomes, there are a number of different issues. A key part of the new directions plan, which I mentioned, is raising awareness. We have a three-year judicial engagement strategy because following the last time that a change was made to community service order legislation in 2011, there was a decrease in the use of the sanction. It is key that we are revving up and it is important to ensure that the information is out there nationwide about the benefits, value and accessibility of the sanction.

Another piece that we are looking at is integrated community service. It is a really important part of it. That is where up to a third of community service order hours can be assigned to address the root causes of the offending behaviour. With the increase up to 480 hours, there are implications for integrated community service as well. Over recent years, we commissioned three reviews: an evidence review; an operational review; and, most recently, an integrated community service review. Based on those findings, we are putting together an action plan and comprehensive guidance, but, really importantly, getting the information out there to members of the Judiciary about the availability of this sanction.

Ms Keaveney will comment on the judicial engagement strategy.

Since 2022, we have been working closely with the Judiciary to raise awareness about the value that probation can add and so that there is a greater understanding about sanctions that are available, particularly to newly-appointed members of the Judiciary. This work was also to encourage two-way communication between ourselves and the Judiciary.

A good example of something that has arisen from this is that District Court judges in the Criminal Courts of Justice, CCJ, recognised that there was a large number of individuals coming before the courts for low level drug-related offending.

In the spirit of diversion and trying to give people an extra opportunity, we currently have an expression of interest opportunity to partner with community-based organisations where, rather than being sentenced before the court, individuals have an opportunity to engage in an education-rehabilitation piece of work and then they can go back. That can be taken into account for the judicial sentencing. Members will hear about it in the future. It is a pre-sentencing opportunity programme initiative, POPI. We are really pleased to have that under way. The expression of interest will go live shortly.

We will also incorporate in that work a new grade of staff that we recently brought on board. In answer to the Senator's question about resourcing, we have brought in probation assistants, which is an executive officer grade post. This is in response to some of the challenges that we have had with resourcing. They can free up our front-line staff to engage in pieces of statutory work, be it the statutory assessment of children or adults or in the supervision of community sanctions, including those that have a post-release supervision order. It makes a more positive use of the social work skills within the service.

I thank Ms Keaveney for that. We will have follow-up questions later.

I thank the witnesses. According to the 2024 figures, the Probation Service dealt with over 17,000 people who offended in the community. It has completed nearly 11,000 pre-sanction reports and oversaw the making of 1,732 CSOs. That is all happening at the same time as our prisons are overcrowded with short custodial sentences that are very much still continuing to be imposed. The Probation Service received a 13% funding increase in budget 2026, which would have been very welcome, but given the present scale of overcrowding, do the witnesses believe the current level of resourcing is sufficient to act as a real alternative to custody?

Currently, the Probation Service staff body stands at 536, of which 85% are front-line staff. As an organisation, we have grown by about 29% across the past five years. On 1 January last year, we were at a staffing level of 499. We are making every effort to increase our staff body in response to the growing demands on the service, and we recognise that there have been lots of different factors that impact on that, including the appointment of new judges and the opportunity for people to avail of community sanctions.

Currently we have competitions under way for probation assistants and probation officers. We also have a live competition for a director-head of service. We are continuing to respond. Knowing that our resources are finite, we have been quite careful about how we are using our resources. As I mentioned, the introduction of probation assistants can free up our probation officers. We also introduced a new grade of HEOs for business support units, which are regional hubs. This frees up our senior probation officers who traditionally would have taken on health and safety matters. Doing more oversight of the work leads to better outcomes. Better supervision of our staff leads to better supervision of offenders, with more of an emphasis on safer communities.

I thank Ms Keaveney. The Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill on probation orders that is going through the Houses requires courts to consider a CSO and to give a reason if they do not impose one. I am proposing an amendment, which I will table on Committee Stage, that it would go a step further and require courts, where they decline to impose a CSO in lieu of a sentence under 24 months, to explicitly consider making a probation court order instead. From an operational perspective, would the Probation Service support a requirement that probation orders would be actively considered in those circumstances? What additional resourcing would the Probation Service require if probation orders were used more consistently as an alternative to short-term prison sentences?

It is difficult to answer that given that the Deputy is thinking about it in advance. If there is a proposed amendment, we would consider it in the context of the whole legislative process.

To go back to trying to encourage greater use anyway of community sanctions, that is part of our policy and has been for the past couple of years. The Deputy might recall that we did a penal policy covering the period 2022 to 2024, and we are still working on some of the elements of that. Essentially, it is to try to encourage far greater use of community sanctions, as appropriate, depending on the nature of the crime, victim impact, and all of those things that a judge has to weigh up. The benefit of the provision in the Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is essentially to offer a wider suite of options than is there at the moment. That is the main premise behind the provision that has gone into the Bill.

When we are trying to encourage greater use of alternative sanctions or community-based sanctions, how exactly does that work in practice in terms of engagement with the Judiciary?

As my colleague said, there is quite a lot of engagement with the Judiciary. Judges are informed on a regular basis of new probation schemes or new initiatives that might be coming out in a particular area. The increase in staffing will help to have a greater presence in some of the court areas than has been previously possible to be able to guide the court, if a court was unsure as to whether a particular section was available. A lot of work is going on as well to develop some of the alternative sanctions such as restorative justice. By year-end if I am correct - colleagues can correct me if I am not - there will be nationwide availability of restorative justice. That is a huge leap from where we were up to quite recently. The combination of all of these things together provide better options for judges. At the end of the day, the judge makes the decision in particular cases but, for us, we have been putting a focus on trying to make sure that there are reasonable and viable options there as alternatives if they are deemed suitable to the circumstances involved. I hope that is helpful.

It is, but it still feels like it is sometimes a bit different depending on where someone is in the country. Some judges may have more information about alternative community-based sanctions or restorative justice. In terms of getting that message out to the Judiciary - I struggle with that word every day - it still seems to be almost a geographical lottery. If people are in Dublin, judges seem to have more options.

This is where the work of the Probation Service is evident. It engages with the Judiciary.

It is catching.

The aim is to counter some of that and to make sure that the knowledge is spread wide right across the country rather it just being location-specific in terms of what is available. That is a fair reflection of what has been happening.

The advantage is that we are actually sitting in courts and we have a relationship with the judges and they trust us. We write the pre-sanction reports. We make recommendations. They see us as a very important part of the criminal justice system.

As part of the judicial engagement strategy, we are working out a two-way system of communication. Part of that is that we get them as an audience where we can promote the use of community sanctions. Last year we were fortunate in that we were able to attend two of the judicial conferences. We were able to speak in particular on the area of community service and restorative justice. For some judges who may not have had that exposure, it kind of enlightens them about considering it as a sanction. We have ongoing communication with them throughout the year as well.

I will answer two questions together. Senator Ruane asked about the increasing targets in restorative justice. First, it is important to say that restorative justice is currently available nationally through the Probation Service, but we also fund community-based organisations to manage referrals in the community. There has been a significant increase. By the end of this year we will be funding the CBO provision of restorative justice in 24 counties, with the ambition to be in 26 counties next year. We are well on track for that. We are also now running an expression of interest to put in place a restorative justice framework. We are also working in collaboration with community-based organisations to ensure the same principles and consistency of delivery.

In terms of the increase in referral, in 2023, there were 360 referrals to CBOs but in 2024 the figure was 704, which is a 95% increase. Although the 2025 figures are to be finalised, the indication is that there were 948, so that is a further 35% increase. It is positive. What we know about restorative justice is that it demonstrates higher victim satisfaction levels in the criminal justice system but also among people who have offended as well. It is all going in the right direction.

I thank the witnesses for coming in.

Will Ms O'Regan comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the Greentown programme? I have been advocating for the roll-out of Greentown based on what I have heard about its impact throughout different towns and cities. She also mentioned that when changes were last made to community service orders, it led to a decrease in the use of the sanction. Through her engagement with the Judiciary, is she confident this will not happen again this time around? I would like to hear a little more about POPI. Ms Keaveney said it was a pre-sentencing initiative. Does a person engage with a local community group and a judge takes it into account when sentencing? I do not know much about it and would like to hear more.

In relation to the Greentown programme, Dr. O'Connell will speak to it from a policy perspective and then we will cover the operational side.

I am not sure how familiar members are with the background of the Greentown programme. Do they want a primer on what Greentown is?

Dr. O'Connell should go for it for the benefit of everybody.

The Greentown programme is a unique partnership between the Department, University of Limerick and An Garda Síochána. It was established in 2016 to develop an evidence-informed programme capable of dealing with child grooming for crime by coercive criminalised adults. It has four pillars. Three of them are active and up and running. The first, the intensive family programme, provides supports to families with children who are engaged in coercive behaviour. The second provides young people with pro-social opportunities in their communities. The third supports the communities themselves. We have community-based organisation that are working in the communities to build up supports and trust. The fourth one is about targeting groomers and disrupting their networks. An Garda Síochána is leading this element. The first three pillars are led by two community-based organisations in two sites, which are confidential for purposes that members probably understand.

Greentown is a pilot project and has been running since 2016. It was renewed in 2019 following an evaluation, which showed that there were already some positive outcomes across the board in the community. Since 2021, a total of 227 young people and their families have participated in the Greentown programme across the two sites. The programme does not really intend to break up criminal networks. It is more of an intensive programme for under-served children to try to make sure there are places for them to go.

Is this to break the cycle?

Exactly. It is to have a place to wrap around them and support them, if there is an idea that they might be involved in this activity. One of the main strengths of Greentown and one of the big learnings we are thinking about in relation to how we might embed it across the youth diversion network more generally are the two local advisory committees that sit on top of the CBOs. Representatives from the Probation Service and Tusla are on the advisory committees, along with representatives from different groups. They are looking at the needs of each child from a cross-agency view, which is really important and is a challenge in other ways. Ms Keaveney can speak a bit more about the role of the Probation Service on the Greentown referral committees.

A lot of the challenges we face with Greentown relate to data sharing. We have all these agencies coming together to talk about children. It is about making sure we do it in an effective way and are identifying kids in safe ways. Obtaining consent from parents can also be a challenge sometimes. These are the practical challenges. There are also sometimes threats of violence against people who are participating in the Greentown programme, but these are very rare. It is not a significant thing.

We are currently evaluating the Greentown programme. That will help us extrapolate some of the positive learnings. We have the 94 youth diversion projects. We want to see what can work that we have learned from Greentown, such as the referral committees that bring together representatives from the different agencies. We want to see how we can embed that learning across the network. The evaluation is set to be done by quarter 1 2027. It will look across the four pillars to see to what to extent they are working together because it has been designed for them to work in cohesion.

I will respond to the Deputy's query about the decrease in the use of community services orders from 2011. We are cautious about commenting on the causes and effects of the introduction of legislation, but we do know that the Covid-19 pandemic happened afterwards. During that period, the community service sites had to be shut down for public safety reasons. Over time, we have seen a progressive increase since them. The use of CSOs as a sanction is finally back to the level it was at in 2011. As I mentioned earlier, we have a new directions plan where we are seeking to improve consistency and awareness, as well as the confidence that the public and Judiciary has in community service order as a sanction.

An important piece of research was published by the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration at the end of 2024. Professor Nicola Carr and Dr. Niamh Maguire carried out research among the Judiciary at District Court level to understand their decision-making around CSOs as an alternative to imprisonment. What became clear was that the Judiciary sometimes felt that the level of punishment was not there. That has been addressed by the increase in hours. On the other hand, there are people before the courts who have different complexities such as addictions or mental health issues. We see this as a huge opportunity for the Probation Service to rise and address these issues. I mentioned the integrated community service earlier and that is a means through which we can direct people towards the appropriate treatment, and they can be credited hours for those treatments after they have completed the unpaid work part. We are also developing restorative justice community service modules that address pieces such as victim empathy.

It also about raising awareness. The reoffending rate for people who participate in community service orders was published last week. It is 19%, which is really among the lowest of any of the sanctions. A lot of this is about getting the word out about the positives and that is before we even begin to mention the benefit of the unpaid work to the community. A total of 222,000 hours of unpaid work was conducted to the benefit of communities in 2024. It was worth an estimated €2.8 million and was in lieu of 856 years' imprisonment. At a rough figure of €100,000 per person per year to keep someone in prison, that is a saving to the State of €85 million. We are really keen to get the benefits of this community-based sanction out there.

The witnesses have outlined very well the range of work that the Probation Service does. However, the truth of the matter is it is not working. The figures we saw last week from the CSO indicated that 50% of people who come through the Probation Service reoffend within three years. To be frank, that is a crazy number and very worrying.

Ms Ní Chinnéide just spoke about the distinction between the numbers in terms of those who have come through community-based sanction versus those who have been released from prison. Can we get a little bit of detail in respect of the different reoffending rates for the different sanctions? Where are the deficiencies in the Probation Service that need to be addressed to reduce those numbers?

I am not going to get into the figures, my colleagues have the figures. There will always be reoffending to some degree. That is inevitable. Not everyone who is released from prison is released into the custody of the Probation Service. Some people are out on a structured type of temporary release, which has proven to be very successful and-----

The number I gave relates to those who dealt with the Probation Service.

I appreciate that. I just said that I would not get into the breakdown of the figures. We have outlined where there are tremendous successes in how the Probation Service has been utilised and how it has helped enormously in bringing down rates of reoffending with certain types of crime or sanctions. We continue to invest in the Probation Service. The committee heard earlier that quite an extra bit of money has gone into the service this year. The Probation Service provides an essential service in the criminal justice system and complements what else is going on. My colleagues are better placed to speak about the operational day-to-day realities.

We believed it was a good news story because it shows that we have a continuing trend of falling reoffending rates and probation sanctions.

Of course, any reoffending is not good because there is a victim-----

Is the fall not largely due to a significant reduction in the cohort of road traffic offenders but not across the others? Would that not be fair to say?

I do not have the detail in front of me about the different categories of offence but we note that whether people come out of prisons or out of community service, public order offences have the highest rate of reoffending. That is most linked with social and economic factors that underlie much offending behaviour. On prison and probation, there was reference earlier to our newly established social inclusion and reintegration unit. We work hard to address those social and economic factors with our clients in order to give the best prospect for success, but the sanction alone is unlikely to result in zero reoffending, because people are often just returned to the same circumstances in which they reoffended initially.

The point I am making is that we, as a community and society, need to look at these figures and realise that there is a big problem with recidivism rates in this State. For all the increasing expenditure on probation and across prisons, and all the discussions we have been having on accelerating court processes, if at the end of the day we are not actually tackling the source of the problems, then the problem is not going to improve, certainly not to the numbers needed. How many cases does a probation officer handle on average?

A probation officer would have between 30 and 40 cases at any given time. We work using a risk-based approach, so all of our officers are trained in working with sexual offenders, domestic violence offenders, children, and generic offenders, so there would be an even spread across the caseload. Depending on the risk of that particular caseload, it could be between 30 and 40.

That seems very high.

That would be a very low rate per officer internationally. We have looked at this and at other caseload measures in both Europe and internationally, and we feel confident that that is a good marker. It is important that no officer would have a full caseload of all low-risk offenders or, likewise, very high-risk offenders. It is important that there is a spread.

If an officer had a caseload of 40, for example, how regularly would each person meet the officer? Does the service describe them as clients?

Yes, we refer to them as clients.

How often would each client expect an interaction with a probation officer?

This goes back to our risk. When our journeys with offenders commence, we prepare with them a risk assessment. This identifies whether they are low, moderate, high or very high. The higher the risk, the greater the frequency of contact.

For each of those categories, what would the average space between interactions be?

For high and very high, weekly at minimum, then there would be some contact with them throughout the week. For moderate, it would be fortnightly, and for low risk, it would be fortnightly to monthly.

Is there a staffing deficit at the moment? Ms Keaveney mentioned a staffing cohort of 536.

We have competitions ongoing. We have eight vacancies at senior probation officer grade and 32 at probation officer grade.

That is 40. If those 40 spaces were filled in the morning, does Ms Keaveney believe the Probation Service would have sufficient staff across the board?

That would be our expectation but human beings being as they are, people will be retiring and we have a large young population of females, people on career breaks, and so on. That is what we would hope to expand to.

I welcome the witnesses. Apologies that I missed their initial presentation, as I was at another meeting. The community service aspect is something that I would like to talk to them about. I am a strong advocate for it and the statistics laid out by the witnesses earlier play that out. That has been hugely successful.

Is there a certain number of supervisors in each county? Do the witnesses have that figure from a national perspective? There is also the element of volunteer supervisors. How does that work from the capacity of voluntary supervisors? Do they have to sign off on someone doing a certain number of hours in the community? If so, is there anything for them in that regard? Does the group get any financial assistance for the role it plays in that regard and do we have many of those in the country?

The witnesses outlined the saving to the State and that it makes perfect sense at a time when prisons are full. We should be seeing more of this rather than less. Apart from the financial savings to the Exchequer, from the point of view of offenders and what they get from it, and indeed the wider community, it is hugely positive, and it is something that I would like to see expanded to a much greater capacity than there currently is. In that regard, if someone gets 30 hours or 50 hours of community service, does someone have to sign off on that at the end of the 50 hours? I read somewhere that it has to be a fairly visible activity. Are any activities ruled out from that? I imagine most people would like to do it behind closed doors, so to speak. I am wondering how that works out. I think it is a fantastic initiative and something I would like to see much more of.

I thank the Senator for his questions and his focus on that. We have just under 50 community service supervisors, so one per county and then more in certain counties like Dublin and Cork. I would not say they are unsung heroes but they play a really important role, because unlike all other the staff in the Probation Service, they are on-site, working with clients for eight hours a day and play an important role in pro-social behaviour modelling, the dynamic, and monitoring how people are going. They work closely with our probation systems and probation officers. For example, a client could be interested in the work and would like to pursue further studies or training in that area, so there is a link back, or somebody might arrive on-site in the morning who is clearly under the influence, and that is not safe for that person or others, so that would be managed by the community service supervisor, linking back into probation systems and probation officers. Community service supervisors play an important role.

On the voluntary aspect, we have individual placements. We do not really have voluntary group sites, for safety reasons. Work in a charity shop, for example, would be common. The individual placements are for those clients for whom work such as manual labour on a work site might not be so appropriate or it could be for cultural reasons, so, for example, certain communities might not want a young woman working on site with men painting walls. We try to be as responsive as possible to find the unpaid work placement that matches the needs. Nothing is not allowed but it has to be unpaid work for the benefit of the community. That is set out in the legislation.

On visibility, thankfully we do not want to put people in jumpsuits and see that. We would like to see more recognition of the unpaid work that is done, everywhere from a garden in Cavan for the Alzheimer Society of Ireland to work in Rothe House in the centre of Kilkenny. There are very moving stories about young fellows at the end. It might be their first experience of the structure of getting up in the morning, going to work, coming back in the evening, and wanting to carry on after their sanction is finished, which is not appropriate but quite moving. That is a real opportunity to plug people into community employment schemes, work with local development companies, and further training. The other story that always sticks with me is a parent bringing their children along to see the work they had done. The reason for doing that work was long forgotten but there was a certain pride in the work. It is a really important sanction.

What is also important is that it is a direct alternative to imprisonment. We do not want to see the net widening where many more people are doing unpaid work in a community without seeing a commensurate reduction in the use of short-term imprisonment in particular. That is shown to have poorer outcomes for people, particularly women.

If someone was working in a charity shop, which was the example given, does the owner or supervisor of the charity shop have to sign off that Joe or Josephine Bloggs has spent X amount of time there?

Yes. That is a role for the probation assistant or probation officer and they log the hours. There is software where we log the hours and keep track of how many hours unpaid of work are remaining. They report in. That is the importance of the relationship between probation staff and, on the other side, the placement manager but they are not paid for that. The benefit is the unpaid work that is being contributed.

I thank Ms Ní Chinnéide.

This relates to the discussion of the Probation Service. The Minister for justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, visited the constituency of Galway East and I brought him to see a lot of the great restorative justice work that is ongoing in Tuam, County Galway. What engagement is there with the teams operating in places like Tuam, County Galway?

On engagement with our own probation teams, the EMT is the executive management team. We host our executive management team meetings at regional hubs from time to time as an opportunity to meet with our staff. Last year, we introduced a new model of supervising offenders - it is actually based on our previous practice but there was a strengthening of it. The national implementation team is headed by our director of effective practice. Ms Ní Chinnéide and I sit on that. We go out and invite our probation officers to come in and give us their feedback on that model.

We are locally engaged, from time to time. There are regional managers who meet with those teams and feed back any matters of importance they want to bring to our attention. We have other forums staff can attend as well. We have a senior probation officer forum staff can come to and raise issues. Most of the service was originally on the frontline so we are very invested in going back to the communities from which we have come or where we have staff working.

The Minister witnessed this on his visit and part of the great work that is done in Tuam is that in the town, there is a very special relationship between the Tuam Community Training Centre and the Probation Service and ensuring that people who are going through that process are getting training, education, IT skills and they are upskilling - you name it. I was really impressed with the people I met that day, their commitment and dedication to their roles and the way in which they were carrying them out.

The issue I saw is the Department of justice owns the building out of which all of this training operates. Obviously, the Tuam Community Training Centre operates as a licensee. I believe that building needs to be considered for capital investment to improve it and to improve the conditions in which people are working. I am not saying the conditions are sub-par. The conditions are adequate at the moment but they could be seriously improved for the betterment of the entire north Galway and western region when it comes to fostering improvement for people who are going through the Probation Service. I just wanted to make that point today. I know it is a bit parochial and I appreciate having the chance to speak about it but it is something I think is so important - the conditions in which our Probation Service is operating.

I know there was a proposal to consider moving it out of the Tuam Community Training Centre and to a rented unit in Tuam. I think that would defeat the purpose because we would lose that connection between the training centre, the Probation Service and the entire western restorative justice section. I hope I am making sense and if I am not, let me know.

We are aware of the issue and we fund that project so we work very much hand in glove with it. We sat on the board of management for many years as well until we recently made the decision that is not appropriate for us to be on boards where we also fund them. We are aware there is a request from the project that ownership would move across and it has written to us on that. The matter is in train with the Department.

The latest I have heard is there a consideration between the Department of public expenditure and the Department of Finance about the proposal to transfer the property. At the moment, the Tuam Community Training Centre cannot apply for grants because it does not own the building. I do not know if the Department of justice is in a position to make the investment. Could the Probation Service open a line of communication with me, via email or however, as I would love to get an update as to where that is at and what is happening?

Briefly, I will mention that is under consideration between the Department and the Probation Service at the moment. We are actively looking at it but there has been no specific course of action decided on just yet.

I appreciate that and thank the witnesses.

The Minister will be here next week to deal with Estimates so that would be an appropriate time to put the pressure directly on him.

I will. I thank the Cathaoirleach.

I want to ask about the risk analysis. I am very conscious there are 340 people in prison at the moment awaiting psychiatric care. In terms of the risk assessments, how much of a barrier to offering probationary support, community-based sanction or alternative sanction is the fact we do not have places for people in the Central Mental Hospital? Is that a barrier to the Probation Service's work when it encounters people who clearly have very significant mental health issues who are being placed in our prison systems?

For any person where there is consideration for community sanction, a pre-sanction report will be sought by the judge. As part of that, we look at the whole landscape of that person's life. For those who have mental health issues, it will encapsulate that and we will consider that.

On our risk assessment, it primarily looks at the risk of reoffending and the risk of harm. All of our staff are trained in the various different risk assessment tools. Some of those are specifically for children. Others are for sexual offending and domestic violence. We have a risk of harm tool as well. That is how we prepare our risk assessment but I will ask Ms Ní Chinnéide to talk about some of the features of our clients and their mental health.

I might go back to an earlier question on reoffending, social inclusion and reintegration. There have been two important research studies over recent years and both were completed around 2021. One looked at the levels of substance misuse among probation clients and the other looked at mental health. In terms of substance misuse, 81% of probation clients had either drug issues, alcohol issues or both and 67% were problematic drug misusers. In terms of mental health, at least 40% of adults on a probation supervision order had active mental symptoms indicative of a mental health problem, compared with 18.5% of the general population. In all categories, women showed a higher prevalence in every case, including risk of self-harm, anxiety and depressive symptoms.

It is important to outline the role probation has in terms of identification of those needs. Our role is to screen, refer and sustain people's engagement with treatment. We do this through three things. All of our approaches work within the Irish probation framework. Two important tenets are personalisation and co-production. That is working with the client in order to put together a case management plan that will address these things. An important part of our work with people is goal setting and motivational interviewing. This is the particular role that probation plays in sustaining people's engagement with those treatments.

There are two pieces of work I will mention and Ms O'Regan might come in after that. There is the high level taskforce on mental health and addiction needs but also the probation system and justice workstream of Sharing the Vision.

That is seeking to address a number of the issues we saw on the recent programme. It is an important forum where justice and health come together. In terms of the high-level task force, probation has a number of actions assigned which we are working through with colleagues. There are very clear recommendations and we are working the HSE social inclusion. It is an important development locally. Our experience is we can just pick up them up and get those referrals through, particularly where there are multiple complexities.

In that high-level task force, we have people looking at the diversion stage to keep some of those people away altogether from the criminal justice system because it is not a suitable solution for many of them. The central pillar was about people in prison and trying to improve their situation. The other bit where the Probation Service is also quite invested is throughput, making sure that on release from prison somebody is released into something. High levels of co-operation have been a result of that high-level task force. They are working much closer than possibly was the case a number of years ago. An importance piece around diversion and a successful intervention the committee is probably aware of which has come out of that high-level task force is the CAST scheme in Limerick. That concerns when a 999 call comes in and there may be a degree of criminality to the event, the core issue may be that somebody is having a psychotic episode. The figures so far from just one year of operation have been extremely encouraging. It has resulted in far fewer people who may have mental illness issues, depending on the degree of severity, being committed into the Garda station under section 12. We are seeing a huge reduction there. The other more important bit is because it is a co-response between the local HSE and the Garda, people are getting medical intervention earlier and getting the medical attention they need. Depending on an individual's circumstances, particularly where mental health is involved, you have to make sure the person is getting the treatment they need for the issue and not coming into the criminal justice system. It is a very successful initiative. It is not fully evaluated yet but one year of operation already shows how well the HSE can work with the criminal justice system in certain situations. There is good work between the Probation Service and the HSE, trying to iron out the issues and difficulties at the moment. A lot of it is the additional support some people need. It is very helpful to try to get them on a more even keel or balanced situation. It is to be aware that the diversion piece can be quite important as well.

I think I know the answers to some of these questions but I will ask them so I can try to piece it together somewhat. How many people are released to probation services or referred to probation from prison who do not have an address?

We do not capture that much but today there are about 450 caseloads on the Dublin homeless team and on the sex offender resettlement team there are about 25. That is only Dublin.

More practically when looking at community-based sanctions, I am thinking of a side to the community service aspect with access to services, education or rehabilitation treatment. If a judge orders a community-based sanction to include X, Y and Z, is it the judge who makes the determination of the X, Y and Z? I have read past probation orders. As a minor, I was under probation orders and they were really rigid - must provide four urine samples with no substances in them. They do not really move with real life for people. Ms Ní Chinnéide mentioned the social conditions in which people offend or reoffend and how society has contributed to that rather than focusing on the individual and their recidivism, focusing on the societal conditions and inequity in people's conditions. If someone is ordered as part of their community sanction to attend a particular service, how is that measured within that service? They may have never entered a service before in their life; perhaps they are back up for their probation six weeks later and they have only gone once. That is amazing for some people if they have engaged once and never had an interaction before. There is no assessment that runs alongside the judicial setting. When I was in Red Hook community courts in Brooklyn, a social worker was on site in the courts. They did a full assessment of what was needed. You could send someone to education but they may have an undiagnosed learning disability and the assessment might be more important for their recidivism rate, not them engaging in education. It might be cart before horse stuff sometimes. We see the amount of undiagnosed neurodiversity in prisons and dyslexia - all these things. How do we ensure that community-based sanction is responsive to the need and is also trauma informed? I was looking at a probation order last week that said the person had to stay sober. Sober was the term used - it did not say it would be measured. I am sure there was an instrument to do that. Is that realistic if someone is of no address and still living on the streets of Dublin? Their probation will be seen as unsuccessful because they perhaps endured a public order interaction in the time they were on probation. How can we flesh that out?

We agree with everything the Senator has said. Social exclusion drives recidivism. It is like Maslow's hierarchy - if they do not have the basics, how can we expect the person to change? We are in the business of helping people to change. We cannot do all of that and that is where our partnerships are really important, be they with statutory bodies or the community-based organisations we fund. On the conditions of the order, as part of our pre-sanction report we look at every aspect of the individual's life. We consider if they are homeless, if they have mental issues, etc. The nub of what we are trying to find out is why did this particular person commit this particular offence at this particular time. Homelessness can be a driver of that. They may be in the wrong place because they have nowhere to stay or they may have robbed from a shop because they have no money and they cannot collect. We look at that in the entirety and put a plan and recommendation to the judge. On measurement, for the homeless offenders we have in Dublin, for example, we have a large team engaging with them. For some of the problems we identify, we cannot put an eye on the person because they are in a tent or they cannot charge their phone because they do not have an address, so how do we work around that. We have done two rounds of expressions of interest. We have partnered with two community-based organisations, one last year to work with the broader homeless caseload and recently, identifying that we have a high number of women on the homeless team workload, we have employed someone specifically. We do pop-ups in homeless services to engage with these offenders. We work out ways we can assist them in whatever conditions of the order and in trying to fulfil the order. Sometimes we bring orders back and ask for conditions to be amended or changed because we recognise that the offender cannot fulfil them for a particular reason. We want to include them as members of our society. We have established a social inclusion unit which Ms Ní Chinnéide can speak about to break down those barriers. We want to give every offender the best opportunity; they can come onto our books, live out that order and achieve some of the targets and conditions set which will improve their life as meaningful contributing citizens.

The Senators raised good questions about measuring success and those outcomes.

Within the past two years, we undertook a review of our community-based organisations, CBOs, and our approach to that. One of the clear recommendations was that we move towards looking at what success and outcomes should be. About one third of our annual budget is provided to CBOs, which extend our work in the community.

I wish to raise an example of supervised temporary release. We established this pilot in July 2024. It is established in Limerick Prison. It was recognition of the phrases "the revolving door" or "the life sentence by instalment", particularly for women who are in and out prison and living chaotic lives in the community but also for low-level offending. This model is proving. Again, what is the benchmark of success? About 55 women have accessed the programme since its initiation. About 25 women have successfully completely it. We consider that as a big success. The Irish Prison Service considers that as a big success. What is important is sustaining women for a longer time in the community. They might be returned to prison, but it is a longer time in the community. The Senator mentioned earlier about somebody showing up for treatment once or maybe we can get them along three times to their treatment. It is important that the judicial system and criminal justice system is seen as robust. Certainly, these initiatives are showing that we can make a difference.

I have some questions before we let the witnesses go. Does the Probation Office have any direct role with the bail supervision scheme?

Is this for children or adults?

It is only in place for children.

Since 1 January, the oversight of it has moved across to the Probation Service. It has recently come under our portfolio. From our operational work, we are supportive of that. It is very much in keeping with the spirit of the Children Act of diversion.

We understand that the intention is that it will be extended to some adults.

I spoke about that earlier. The intention is to try to extend it into the adult cohort. It is one of the recommendations. It is not their particular scheme, but we have to develop one for the adult cohort. It is one of the recommendations that came out of the Lorcan Staines's report on bail recently. Prior to that, we in the Department, had been looking at a specific one for women and noting the particular need for support that members have been speaking about. I mentioned earlier that we are scoping that out and seeing how we can bring that forward.

Is there a timeline?

No, but it is something that is on our work plan and needs to be done. We would be looking at trying to do something on a proof concept basis initially to see what the need is. Looking at what is happening in other jurisdictions, they are doing something similar in Northern Ireland. It is not possible to roll out the entire thing into the adult one in one go because there is a lot of learning to be derived from it. They are looking at developing theirs on a female basis first. This is mainly because there are fewer female prisoners in the system. We are trying to address that need.

It was mentioned in the opening statement about the pilot scheme for electronic monitoring. Ms O'Regan indicated that pilot might be in place this year. What is that likely to look like?

We are rolling out a pilot this year for electronic monitoring. Regarding what that is likely to look like, there are quite specific pieces of legislation we will be operating the pilot under. One of those is for prisoners on temporary release and the other cohort will be for people on bail who have a condition that can be monitored by electronic monitoring. They are the two cohorts of people that we are looking at and the legislation that underpins those. We have a tender process ongoing at the moment to put a provider in place for that. The intention is to seek a managed service for the monitoring and the tags. Again, we are looking to wrap that process up in the coming weeks. Hopefully, we will be looking at the operation the pilot towards the latter half of this year.

How many people would it be envisaged will be accommodated in the first pilot?

We have structured the tender for 30 to 50 tags initially. We have learnt from other jurisdictions, such as the UK and Northern Ireland, that, typically, each tag gets used three times by three different people in a year. Based on that, we would be seeing up to 150 people monitored in a 12-month period.

What is the reason for tendering as opposed to trying to develop the capabilities in-house?

The reason for tendering is that the technology aspect is one piece. We were going to have to buy that in anyway, then the monitoring capability is quite tied to the particular technology that is in use. We have seen that most providers have a specific platform that does the monitoring. They have the ability to fit the tags and remove the tags. They will have the links with ourselves, the Department, the Garda and the Prison Service for the reporting of breaches or other matters that arise with it.

I thank Ms Kennelly for that. I imagine that a large cohort of the clients have underlying addiction and mental health issues. This committee hears quite regularly about the dysfunction, to use that term, within both the addiction and mental health services. How does that affect the Probation Service's work? Is there in-house addiction and mental health capacity within the Probation Service or is it reliant on external services that we know are already under huge pressure?

All our probation officers and front-line staff are social work qualified. Regarding the assessments, we are able to gather that information and signpost individuals on to relevant services. As mentioned by my colleague, we fund 60 community-based organisations nationwide. Some of these include addiction services and counselling services. Again, we can fast-track clients of ours into those services where it is appropriate for them to engage in those supports to enable them to fulfil their court order and promote community safety.

The broad macro question, going back to the heart of the question I raised earlier, is whether the deficiencies within either mental health or addiction services are impacting and impeding on the Probation Office's ability to reduce recidivism.

It is a very good question. As we made reference to earlier, there is very high prevalence of both mental health issues and substance misuse among our client base. To speak about what we are doing, the Chair asked a question about whether we have in-house mental health expertise. Currently, we do not. It is a recommendation included in the high-level task force on mental health that we employ psychology or mental health nurses within the service. We know that clinician to clinician is very important and the best way to get referrals across. We are developing options this year. We will be making a submission to embed a combination of factors. It is important that the direction we are looking at is potential secondment from the HSE. We are exploring pilot options in that regard.

Can I ask a few more questions?

Yes.

On the electronic monitoring, are there concerns about or what sort assessments are being done in terms of GDPR, human rights and the potential of where electronic monitoring can go? There are active and passive uses of GPS within certain technologies. My worst fear is that in some future version of Ireland, there is a government, police department or someone who wants to use the data on a person's electronic monitor that has nothing to do with the threshold they have been given, which is that the client is only to operate within a specific geographic remit or they have to be in their home between specific hours, and that the variables that start to get monitored become more and more and are used in an invasive way. What conversations are happening to make sure that is not the case?

On the first point on the data protection side, that is the starting point we have with the project. Obviously, the provider we put in place will have to comply with all the GDPR and data protection legislation. We have engaged with our own data protection officer and the data protection officers of all the bodies of the justice sector that will be involved in this. That is baked into the tender process we are putting in place. That will be written into the contract.

Has past GDPR legislation or what we are to expect with the digital omnibus that will affect GDPR been taken into account?

As we are tendering for a pilot at the moment, it is a 12-month tender. It is the GDPR regulation and data protection legislation from 2018 that we have.

That is what we are basing it on at the moment. We are doing a pilot. Again, it is 30 to 50 tags in a 12-month period that we are tendering for. The reason for that is so that we can learn on the ground in a relatively controlled and confined way. That will inform a future roll-out. I am conscious that it has not been done on a national scale before. We will do the pilot, learn from that and that will inform a wider scale roll-out if it comes to that.

The Senator had another part to her question.

It was around how it is used and the variables that get added, what is being monitored, and the potential of what can be monitored.

The legislation is quite robust on this. There are two items of legislation that we are working off. For the bail cohort, there is section 6B of the Bail Act of 1997, as amended. Then there is section 108 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. That relates to the temporary release, TR, cohort. As the monitoring was written into that legislation, it is specifically about monitoring compliance with conditions of bail or conditions attached to TR, that is, you can use GPS or radio frequency for that. We found that the market has mostly gone toward GPS, but it can function in a similar way to radio frequency. Basically, the legislation permits us to monitor. You have to be in a certain location and in compliance with a curfew. The Bail Act restricts curfew to being between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. It is limited in what it can be used to monitor. It can be used with an exclusion zone. If you have to stay out of a certain area, it can monitor that as well. They are what we are allowed to do with legislation. That is what we are working under.

To go back to the previous question, the Cathaoirleach asked about mental health. I want to reflect back. There are a small number of highly complex prison releases every year that present challenges in terms of accessing services. Most often, there will be a pattern of violent behaviour, including potentially against care staff. This is a problem because, of course, people working for the HSE - care providers - have a right to be safe in their workplace. At the same time, we know that access to mental health treatment in particular reduces the risk of violence. What is important to say is we, the Irish Prison Service, the Probation Service and An Garda Síochána are working very closely together to develop standard operating procedures around these complex cases. Key pieces are also health and housing. We have very good relations at the moment with the HSE. It is really important that we all work collaboratively and have a mature conversation about how we can ensure the safety of health staff while at the same time ensuring our clients can access the mental health treatment that we know reduces their risk of violence and their risk to the community.

I thank the witnesses for their engagement with the committee. I propose that we publish Ms O'Regan's opening statement on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed. On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses for taking part in what was a very informative and important engagement. The committee will go into private session to deal with a couple of housekeeping issues. Is that agreed? Agreed.