The Government is to introduce a system of early release incentives for imprisoned sex offenders and drug addicts, if they agree to undergo rehabilitative programmes while in prison, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said yesterday.
Currently such offenders are entitled to remission equal to 25 per cent of their sentences. However, under the new system sex offenders and drug-addicted inmates will be entitled to remission only if they undergo rehabilitation.
The scheme is to be included in an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill.
At the publication of the 2004 annual report of the Parole Board, Mr McDowell expressed concern at the low number of self-motivated inmates willing to participate in programmes.
Board chairman Gordon Holmes said sex offenders could be released without having undergone any treatment in prison. In some prisons, such as the Curragh Place of Detention, "few if any" inmates had volunteered for treatment. "It is only a matter of time until such prisoners go back into their old habits and offend again," he said.
The Probation and Welfare Service continued to encounter difficulties due to a shortage of psychologists to work with inmates. More staff should be recruited and sex offenders should be supervised in the early stages of their release, he said.
Mr McDowell said seven additional psychologists had already been recruited to seven prisons and there were plans to recruit more later this year.
Furthermore, mandatory drug testing in prisons would be implemented in November.
Mr Holmes noted in the annual report the public perception that individuals sentenced to life in prison often did not serve lengthy sentences was incorrect.
The murder rate in the Republic had increased to such an extent that some cases had "ceased to make headlines in the newspapers". He urged the Government to introduce strict legislation governing the possession of knives and firearms.
Mr McDowell said any person convicted of murder would serve a jail sentence "running well into double figures. Murder is the gravest crime and it will be treated as such."
He added that Patrick Holland, the man named in court as the killer of journalist Veronica Guerin, would serve all his sentence in Portlaoise Prison.
He was reacting to media comment which suggested Holland would be transferred to the more relaxed environment of the Mountjoy Training Unit before his imminent early release.
The Parole Board report revealed that, of the 43 inmates whose cases were sent last year for review by it, just 10 declined to co-operate with the parole process. A further 98 cases carried over from previous years were also reviewed.
