106 SEX OFFENDERS TO BE RELEASED THIS YEAR
Mcentee reveals impact of Covid on prison numbers
MORE than 100 sex offenders are due for release from prison this year, figures provided by the Justice Minister show.
Helen Mcentee revealed, in a written Dail reply to co-leader of the Social Democrats Catherine Murphy, that over the next three years the total is 254.
She said 106 are due for release this year, 76 in 2022 and 72 the year after.
Ms Mcentee confirmed that at the start of 2021 there were 418 sex offenders in Irish prisons. That number has decreased over the past year due to the impact of Covid on the courts system.
Last year, 118 sex offenders were jailed – a 37% drop on the 187 figure of 2019.
The statistics showed that in 2020, a third of those sent to prison on such charges were jailed for two years or less. A further breakdown reveals 14 received a prison term of one year or less.
Ms Mcentee also confirmed that last year 10 sex offenders were sentenced to 10 years or more in jail.
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief Noeline Blackwell said: “The myth that people only get short sentence for sex offences is dissipated by this piece of information.” She added the sanctions imposed by courts have been rising but said there is a lack of data around sentencing, while some sexual offences can carry a maximum term of five years.
Ms Blackwell added that in the context of the thousands of contacts the centre receives each year “it still appears very few people report sexual offences to gardai in the first place and then there is a high attrition rate of cases”.
She said: “What is absolutely essential is that there needs to be a more co-ordinated, comprehensive and coherent understanding of the justice system.
“We need better data and we will make better decisions as a people when we have better data.”
EUROVISION hopeful Lesley Roy hopes she’s heading in the right direction to win after last year’s event was postponed by Covid-19.
The singer wowed the nation last night performing her song Maps on the Late Late Show.
Lesley, from Balbriggan, Co Dublin, said: “I’m so passionate and focussed on how we told our story last year and again this year and I want to continue
Ireland’s great legacy at the competition.”
The singer said she’s excited about whatever kind of Eurovision goes ahead in May.
She added: “It’s an honour to represent Ireland. I want to have the best three minutes I possibly can on the stage for Ireland in Rotterdam.
“I really feel that I have more of a grasp on what people need right now with what is going on in the world.
Speaking of how the video for the track was shot, Lesley explained: “We went up to the Wicklow mountains, it was so, so cold, but we got some amazing shots.” Coming back to Ireland from New York to follow her passion has meant Lesley could care for her grandmother.
She said: “Coming home is kind of a mirror of the song, there’s only one way to go, and this is the way back home.
“One of the things that pulled me to do Eurovision was that I had always wanted to come back to Ireland and reform my roots here and Eurovision seemed like a great segue to do that.
And for the ambitious blonde songstress the timing couldn’t be better.
She said: “Once the song was finished, one of the things Lauren, my wife, and I discussed was that it made sense to move home.
“It was the exact right time. My grandmother needed full-time care and she lives with Lauren and I now – we took her in once we did our quarantine.
“We are going to be in Ireland for the foreseeable future, it was a natural progression to come home and do this.”