Campaigners back calls to tighten controls on sex offenders
Sex abuse campaigners have today backed Garda calls to tighten up controls on the tracking of offenders.
Officers will this week urge a clampdown on released prisoners who remain on the sex offenders' register over fears they can evade being monitored.
Demands to be heard at the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (Agsi) annual conference will include law changes to force sex offenders to hand over more personal information - including photographs - so they can be better tracked when freed.
Under the proposals, offenders would undergo risk assessments before release.
They would also have to sign on at the main Garda station closest to where they live, rather than at any divisional headquarters around the country, as happens under the current regulations.
Maeve Lewis, executive director of One in Four, which supports abuse survivors, said the organisation was supporting the plans.
"Our experience and the findings of international research tells us that the best way to keep children safe is to actively manage sex offenders on their release into the community," she said.
"We support the call by the Agsi that all registered sex offenders should have a risk assessment before their release from prison and that they should be obliged to sign on at their local Garda station.
"Sex offenders should also be obliged to provide detailed personal information, including photos, to the gardaí."
Caroline Counihan, legal director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI), also backed the calls for a tighter regime.
"The RCNI also propose that all sex offenders should be subject to a minimum period of probation supervision on release," she added.
Demands for the crackdown are being put before the Agsi conference, which opens this evening in Ballymoney, Co Wexford, by Garda officers from Roscommon and Longford.
At last year's conference, Garda sergeant John Hynes, who led the investigation into the so-called Roscommon "house of horrors" incest case, received a Garda Excellence Award for his role in the inquiry.
The five-year investigation led to the prosecution of the parents of six children, who were sexually abused and neglected for years, in what was considered one of the worst abuse cases to come before the Irish courts.
If, as expected, the demands are supported by a majority of members, Agsi will call on Justice Minister Alan Shatter to make the relevant changes to the Sex Offenders Act 2001.
