Press release
Minister Browne welcomes new legislation to strengthen the monitoring and management of sex offenders
Published on
Last updated on
Published on
Last updated on
Minister of State at the Department of Justice, James Browne TD, has welcomed today’s announcement of new legislation to strengthen the management and monitoring of sex offenders in the community.
The Sex Offenders (Amendment) Bill 2021 includes a number of amendments to the sex offenders register notification requirements, as well as providing for electronic tagging and for a prohibition on convicted sex offenders engaging in certain forms of employment.
While such bans on working with children or vulnerable people have been made by the Courts in the past, the Bill will now provide an explicit power for prohibition.
Welcoming the Bill, Minister Browne, said:
"This important legislation will address the concerns of communities around the country about the ongoing management of convicted sex offenders in the community. It introduces stricter notification requirements on offenders, will allow for electronic monitoring in certain circumstances and will explicitly prohibit convicted sex offenders from working with children or vulnerable people.
"These are further meaningful steps in the government’s ongoing work to tackle domestic, sexual and gender based violence, and to support the victims of these horrific crimes."
The Bill fulfils commitments in Justice Plan 2021 and in the Programme for Government to update the Sex Offenders Act 2001 to ensure that convicted sex offenders are effectively managed and monitored, and the publication of the Bill is an action in the Second National Strategy for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.
It also places the current Sex Offenders Risk and Assessment and Management (SORAM) monitoring process for high-risk offenders on a statutory footing.
It is intended that this Bill will be enacted in the coming months.
The main features of the Bill are to:
The latest figures available from An Garda Síochána are that there are 1,708 persons who are currently subject to the reporting requirements of Part 2 of the Sex Offenders Act 2001.
Included in that figure is a total of 319 sex offenders being supervised by the Probation Service in the community, and 192 are on post release supervision in the community by the Probation Service.
The remainder are notifying at Garda stations.
In addition to those currently subject to the reporting requirements, there are 433 people in custody convicted of a sex offence since 2001 who will be subject to reporting restrictions on release.
SORAM is Sex Offender Risk Assessment and Management. It involves the joint management of sex offenders by An Garda Síochána and the Probation Service with the involvement of the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) where there are child protection concerns and other agencies where necessary. SORAM currently operates on a non-statutory basis.
The Bill also provides a power to Gardaí to disclose information about a sex offender’s previous convictions to a member or members of the public where the offender poses a risk of causing harm.
The purpose of proposals relating to SORAM and the proposals on the disclosure of information relating to sex offenders, is specifically to provide a legislative underpinning to the current administrative processes.