Garda monitoring local sex offenders
A local TD has said there are 30 sex offenders living in the Roscommon-Galway constituency and that the measures being used to monitor them are severely outdated.
'There are an estimated 30 convicted sex offenders living in the Roscommon Galway Constituency and Gardai are trying to monitor them with laws that are at least a decade out of date' claimed Indendent TD Denis Naughten.
“The problem with monitoring sex offenders was again exposed by today’s disclosure in the Irish Examiner that there are 18 known sex offenders in the vicinity of a cluster of Cork schools.
'(This) again highlights the fact that the Gardaí have both hands tied behind their backs when it comes to both resources and legal powers to monitor high risk sex offenders.
“The current law governing the conditions for registration, the Sex Offenders Act 2001, is not fit for purpose and needs to be urgently reformed to ensure more effective management of sex offenders,' Deputy Naughten continued.
“At present, once a sex offender registers their official address in Roscommon or Galway with a Garda station, say in Ballyjamesduff , they can roam around the country for six days, once they turn up at their local address in Galway or Roscommon on the 7th day.
“In reality, the failure to close off dangerous loopholes in the monitoring of high risk sex offenders, leaves our system open for abuse and means that any of the estimated 30 sex offenders living in Roscommon & East Galway (a figure that can fluctuate on any given day if offenders move or relocate) who want to avoid Garda attention can easily do so, and still comply with the conditions of the ‘so called’ sex offenders register.”
Deputy Naughten said laws which would provide for effective monitoring and tagging of sex offenders had been shelved.
“For the last six years we have been waiting on urgent laws to close off gaping loopholes in our so called ‘sex offenders register’ and to give Gardaí the legal tools to effectively monitor those who pose a risk to children, women and vulnerable adults,' he stated.
“In September the Justice Minister announced that these urgent reforms of the sex offenders register are to be long-fingered, with new laws not expected for at least another year.
“It was expected that this would be in place by the end of last year and, in fact, the current situation is so dire that the Irish Prison Service has been proactive in planning for the new law and already has 50 new electronic tags available for use once the law has been enacted, which is currently costing the service over €100,000 pa.
“It was also expected that this legislation would provide the Gardaí with the power, in certain circumstances, to inform a parent or the community of the risk a sex offender poses to a child or the community as a whole.
“The law was intended to make provision for parents to have the right to access relevant information from the Gardaí regarding a high risk sex offender who is living in their community, and who poses a threat to their son or daughter.
“While the public are shocked with the lax bail laws that we have in Ireland, I believe that they would be outraged if they realised just how bad the law is when it comes to monitoring high risk sex offenders,” he said.