Branch for west suffers in cuts

PLANS to extend a treatment service for sex offenders to the west have been shelved because of a lack of funding.

The programme, known as the Lighthouse Project, caters for sex offenders at two locations in Dublin and another facility recently opened in Cork and is jointly operated by the Probation Service and the Granada Institute.

It was planned that another branch of the Lighthouse Project would open in the west later this year, but the Department of Justice confirmed no funding has been allocated for it. The decision, which was taken in the past few weeks when annual budgets were set, comes just weeks after Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern outlined a range of proposals aimed at improving the monitoring and treatment of convicted sex offenders.