There are currently 1,756 convicted sex offenders living in communities across Ireland, new Garda figures have revealed.
And the Government has confirmed that a raft of new measures to track and trace them will be made law by the end of the year. The Department of Justice said the police for the first time ever will have the power to inform families that a pervert is living beside them if they fear he or she is a serious danger to the public.
However the vast majority of people will still not be able to find out if a sex offender lives next door. The Irish "Sex Offenders Register" is not a publicly accessible list of convicted sex offenders.
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Instead, it is a process of notification and management of convicted offenders which facilitates their monitoring and ensures they are engaged with the service to manage their risk of reoffending, Justice officials said. This will now involve the gardai, Probation Officers and Tusla by law to access and manage the risk posed by these individuals.
The new legislation drawn up by Fine Gael Justice Minister Helen McEntee will give gardai the power to electronically tag high risk rapists and paedophiles who have done their time. The tags will be used to make them comply with a sex offenders court order or post release supervision so the authorities always know where they are.
Up until now a person on the Sex Offenders Register had seven days to notify the gardai if they were moving to a new address either at home or abroad. This is being changed to three days. The courts under the new laws will also have the power to ban a pervert from working with children or vulnerable adults.
Gardai will also have the power to take fingerprints, palm-prints and photographs to confirm the identity of the person. They will also be able to apply to the courts for the discharge and variation of a sex offenders order.
The Department of Justice said it is aimed to have the new Sex Offenders Amendment Bill 2021, to be enacted into law by the end of the year. It said: "The Bill will strengthen the management and monitoring of sex offenders in the community."
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