asked the Minister for Justice (a) the number of persons employed on the probation service, (b) their qualifications, (c) their rank and (d) their geographical distribution throughout the country.
17.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Probation Service.
16.
asked the Minister for Justice the average number of cases in the hands of an individual probation officer at any one time.
18.
asked the Minister for Justice if there is any minimum time which a probation officer is obliged to spend with probationers entrusted to him.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I shall take Questions Nos. 16, 17 and 18 together.
In my speech introducing the Estimates I made it plain that I was satisfied that the existing probation service, which consists of the six Dublin probation officers, was inadequate, in spite of the exemplary efforts of the individual officers concerned, and that, on the basis of the report on probation and after-care which I am at present examining, I expect to be able to bring about a substantial improvement. The average number of cases per probation officer is 60 at present. The time probation officers spend with their clients varies from case to case and no minimum time is prescribed.
Can the Minister give me some information on the qualifications required for entry into the probation service? Relating to Question 17, can the Minister tell me if it is possible for probation officers virtually to ignore some of their charges, to concentrate on cases which are relatively easy in order to get good statistics, and to neglect the difficult cases?
Regarding the question of qualifications, these officers are all selected by the Civil Service Commissioners as being the best qualified for the job.
What criteria are applied?
Among those recruited by the Civil Service Commissioners there is one probation officer who is a B.Soc.Sc. and B.Comm.; another has a diploma in Social Science from UCD. The others have no academic qualifications. Three officers have been in Britain on Council of Europe fellowships for probation staff. The best men suitable for the job are recruited by the Civil Service Commissioners.
There is another question about the minimum time which a probation officer is required——
The Deputy has 16 questions to the Minister.
And he has not answered one of them. I asked about the minimum time a probation officer is required to spend with each of his charges.
I answered that when I stated that, naturally, there was no time allocated to any particular case. Whereas in one case a very short time would suffice, in another case much more time might be required. This is common sense for anyone.
I would ask the Minister to look into the matter.