“Institutional dialogue with the unions is useful and necessary, particularly on matters concerning working conditions, staff welfare and safety.” Alongside the new prison project, the ministry is strengthening rehabilitation programmes while examining alternatives such as open prisons and electronic monitoring for suitable offenders. On justice reform, the minister acknowledged that delays in the courts remain one of the country’s most persistent institutional problems despite significant progress. Asked about the police’s almost nightly operational campaigns, Fitiris said they should never become exercises in generating arrest statistics. Operations, he explained, are based on intelligence, risk analysis and crime patterns, with their effectiveness measured by reductions in serious crime, disruption of organised networks, seizures of illegal goods and the quality of intelligence gathered.