Ms Joyce Loughnan:

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to allow us to air what we have learned from the services we deliver. Focus Ireland has been working very closely with Seamus Sisk on the implementation of the integrated services management system. Through that engagement, we were able to form partnerships with the Prison Service, the Probation Service, the HSE and other NGOs with which we work closely. Initially from 2007 we worked in the Dublin prisons and then had the opportunity to expand to Limerick in 2009 and Cork in 2010. We are in the process of negotiating starting in the Dóchas Centre prison in 2013. In the Waterford area we have commenced a project around community service.

We are engaging within the prison and outside the prison, which has been a key aspect of our learning and success. We develop those relationships, develop the trust and continue working with people when they are discharged to help settle them back to have a place they can call home, living independently in the community. We are dealing with people with high levels of mental health problems and many of them have addiction issues. There is a cohort of young people who have been in care and have come through the prison system. Other aspects of our work manifest themselves in what we see in the prison area. We have worked with several hundred people during the years we have been operating and have learned a great deal.

I would like the committee to focus on four things. The first is the assessment of housing need of people who are admitted into the prison system. The earlier that assessment can be done the more opportunity it will give us to help preserve any home situation somebody may have so that he or she does not lose that home, especially in the case of those who are in the prison system for a very short period of time. Focus Ireland is trying to shift much of its emphasis to preventing people from becoming homeless. Our work in the prisons is very much geared around that and all the outcomes we measure focus on how we prevent people from becoming homeless.

In doing that assessment an holistic care plan is prepared by our project worker engaging all the relevant services needed to ensure success upon discharge. We need more tightening of the planned discharge so that we can manage the release of people back into the community. It would be very beneficial for us to have more units of supported temporary accommodation. We have been able to provide some of Focus Ireland's stock of housing in the Dublin and Limerick areas. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to secure any accommodation in Cork. We would certainly need more units of supported temporary accommodation where we can manage the release of people from prison so that they do not fall into the homeless system and do not fall back into their old ways. We can actually start them on a better life for the future.

The final thing on which the committee should focus is how these services get funded. We have been very fortunate to receive some contribution from Pobal's dormant accounts fund over the years. However, that has all dried up and the ongoing continuation of our work is purely funded by public donations to our organisation. Having said that, when we measure the outcomes for the people with whom we have worked the number who have remained settled in the community and not re-engaged in the prison system is extremely positive. Many people, including the prison governors and those in the probation services, have said that the people with whom we are working are of the highest level of need and yet we have had a great success rate in reducing the levels of recidivism. While what we are doing is not the whole story, it is a contribution to reducing recidivism. We would be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.