The Justice Minister has reiterated her call for the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) to publish an investigation into the leaking of information to the Sunday Times.

The findings of the inquiry - conducted by senior counsel Mark Connaughton - were never published, as GSOC said the report contained a lot of personal data, which would need to be redacted.

However Minister Frances Fitzgerald also says she has "full confidence" in the Garda Ombudsman Commission, despite calls from her predecessor Alan Shatter this week for GSOC's Chairman Simon O'Brien to resign.

Minister Fitzgerald is also calling for a greater policy focus on reducing crime through reducing reoffending.

She made the comments during an address at an inaugural Irish criminal justice conference, organised by the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, at Wheatfield Prison.

The Minister says figures from the CSO show that offenders who received either a Probation Order or a Community Service Order in 2007 and 2008 had a re-offending rate nearly 50% lower than those who had received a custodial sentence.

Minister Fitzgerald says she intends to proceed with the Criminal Justice (Community Sanctions) Bill which she says will strengthen the legislative framework for supervised community sanctions.