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THE GOVERNMENT IS looking to introduce electronic monitoring for prisoners who are on temporary release in Ireland.
The Irish Prison Service has put forward a tender notice on the e-tenders website, searching for a company who can provide such a service through satellite tracking.
The deadline date to apply for the contract is 28 May.
The tender comes after a successful pilot project examined the whole area of electronic tagging, which was provided for in law by the Criminal Justice Act of 2006.
Since August 2010, the Irish Prison Service has tested the use of the technology on 31 prisoners who were on temporary release.
Minister Alan Shatter said the group were “carefully selected” by using a range of criteria including the nature of the offence, public safety and overall conduct while serving their jail term.
Prisoner compliance was high during the trial and only one person was recalled because of a curfew violation.
Since the pilot concluded, seven prisoners have been tagged – most of whom were suffering from ill health.
The Irish Penal Reform Trust said it was keeping an open mind on the issue of electronic tagging.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast today, the Trust’s director Liam Herrick said that such a system may “serve a function in specific circumstances”.
He warned, however, that tagging can only tell where somebody is – not what they are doing.
The contract being tendered out by the Irish Prison Service will only cover those already in Irish prisons and will not be an alternative punishment for the courts to use instead of jail time.
Currently, Britain and Sweden use it in the place of prison sentence in some cases. This has led to a drop in the number of prisoners in Sweden but has not impacted on the costs incurred by the British criminal justice system.
Temporary release of prisoners is seen as a way of gradually reintegrating offenders back into society, according to Shatter. There are about 1,000 prisoners out on temporary release in Ireland.
Minister Shatter is currently waiting on the IPS’s viability study of electronic management of prisoners, as well as a cost-benefit analysis. That review will be considered in the contest of the Strategic Plan 2012-2014.
These people really are delusional.
Shatter should quit while he’s behind, ride off into the distance…
And fall off the edge of the world lol.
Surely he’s toxic at this stage. He refuses to accept a legal judgement that he did wrong. But to be honest it doesn’t matter who’s put forward for the election because the entire FG party is becoming a toxic brand with their arrogance at this stage.
Labours Alex White will be slaughtered. Shatter wouldn’t make it and FG know it. New faces needed to hide the past..
At this stage it’s just scandal after scandal; there’s too much to hide.
It will be an electoral bloodbath for FG, Labour (and hopefully FF ) in the next election.
They must know it, but the prize… Brown envelopes and excellent pensions (plural. It’s illegal for the average citizen to have more than one state pension) are just too great.
Stick to writing fist fodder mr shatter.
Reputation,What a F’ing Joke
Surely FG aren’t going to stand behind Shatter after firing him not to mention ……………
Seriously if Shatter is returned as a TD in the next election it just means this country is truly wrecked….
Michal Lowry?
wipe them out in GE.traitors.
Alex white is gone for sure. Fg may get one seat and Shane Ross will definitely take a seat. No idea who will win the 3rd seat but lets hope its not ff.
“When he entered her, he knew it was her first time.”
Just use this as your campaign motto Alan.
I will vote for Shane Ross and any other independent in South Dublin no FG / FF / or Lab thank you,and i hope many people will do the same, we can’t let these lying incapable people to continue ruining the Country.
Shane Ross who endorsed enda kenny for taoiseach post election? The spindo writer? nah ill give him a miss. also pro lifer Peter Matthews won’t be getting my vote
Yes, but your 2nd preference will be important as he’ll have a surplus
Shane Ross is a spoofologist… What has he actually done?
Please yourself Kevin
Thankfully Fine Gael are thinking of the real people , the backbone of our society struggling to exist.
meanwhile the rest of us are thinking of the homeless, paying our bills etc
Thankfully Fine Gael will give the rich the tax reliefs they deserve, instead of providing shelter to the homeless
How is it an “exclusive”interview with him when it’s his newsletter. Arrogance,living in a bubble.
Shatter. A Piosa Cac.
“THE EGOOOO HAS LLLLAAAANNNNNNDDDDDED”
For Cononley….. Can I just say, I voted for these clowns in power this time round..(stupid me) i don’t comment much, but by the carry on of our government and their minions I will be voting… Let’s say ‘different’ this time…
I’d move to South County Dublin just so I could vote for someone other than Shatter or Mitchell.
Ha ha, his party is the least of his problems if he’s trying to be reelected, it’s the public votes he needs not backing from the rest of the gibbons.
Olivia Mitchell is the spit of Peter O’Toole.
Just sayin’
If yea want this lot out fg ff labour just remember not to give them your second third and so on that how these f. Ck get in
I’ll be voting backwards, start with my least favourite and work up to my No1. Currently last will be FG followed by LAB and then FF, so none of them will get my transfers.
why not just vote for your choice and leave it at that. I give no transfers to people I despise.
what if some FG lackey ticks the box in the counting booth. best to leave them where they belong at the bottom
I wish paddy power did bets on guess the Hugh o connell headline, garuntee now he went do one on all other dublin rathdown candidates
Oh I see he gave the establishment a paragraph each and the others a sentence. I suppose they should be content with the sentence.
It’s time to let things go!
He was good minister had some ideas to reform the legal system. Vested interests got him out and has become a hate figure for the media
All the reform ideas buried now by new minister sadly
Think he will re re-elected
Hello Alan.
+1
Alan you broke the law as a justice minister. nothing more ironic
Alan very poor attempt at ghost writing!
please note my +1 was for the comment that shatter was an exceptional minister.
Rumour has it, He is getting a deal Like Calvin Klein,
But somehow i don`t think “Shatter Underpants” will be a very big seller….
He needs material for a new book, The Shatter Bible?
Nelson says Ha Ha
Olivia’s at the top of my poll.
Dancing or swinging?
She was bouncing until someone said she looks like Peter O’Toole.
What Shatter needs to do is some kind of Star Trek mock up, I bet no one’s done that before and people would thing it was brilliant.
Was reading shatter’s exclusive interview :P from the image and noticed talk of property inheritance tax.
Are there any political individuals or parties looking to remove property tax and inheritance tax? I just think that people have paid some form of vat on their houses already and paye on any cash lumpsum they leave in their will already then to be taxed a 2nd or 3rd time on the same capital? Sorry for going slightly off topic here but the only asset I have in my life in ireland is my car (grateful to have it) but seems even with a good IT job, owning any reasonable property that’s in a reasonable area just seems impossible. Then if I do manage to squirrel enough away to get a home of my own, if I were to die noonan gets another slice of the action?
Im 27 years old, a home bird here in cork, but the more I read news articles online about ireland I do get very worried that I’ll be priced out of the place I grew up in. Would living in germany or spain be any better though?
Hopefully Neale will get nominated!
Wow, Journal has a lot of red thumbing Shatter fans…
I blame Laura, she was red thumbed as well lol.
Snap Election.
I love Alan Shatter
That’s a rare complaint, give…ehhh.. Alan a shout and start a self help group.
Are you gay Karl
Wow a flyer titled Alan Shatter newsletter has an ‘Exclusive’ interview with Alan Shatter. What are the odds.
Is this the reason for the previous article by Hugh about Shatter last week (Reasons why Shatter is not like other TD.s’)?
have your say