Ms Bernie Grogan:

We have been building relations with the Irish Prison Service and have received referrals from the Probation Service. My colleague and I had a meeting with the assistant director of the Probation Service to discuss the project. We launched the impact report in October and that gave us a vehicle to communicate better with people but throughout the year we have been making contact with all agencies working with ex-offenders and their families. We have been invited to prisons. We were brought on a tour of Mountjoy and talked through the ISM project. We have been in St. Patrick's Institution. A number of our staff and volunteers have prison clearance and can meet the governors and the staff. We have been building up these contacts and relationships. They have welcomed us and they recognise the need for the work we are doing and the services we are providing.

We will apply for funding next year. We attended the NEVA meetings, the national ex-voluntary agency meetings in Portlaoise.

We have met with the Bedford Row family project and prison support groups from Cork and Cavan. These meetings take place every couple of months and provide a national view of developments. Beladd House is open to us attending meetings held on the premises and meeting other agencies working in this area. While our experience thus far has been good, we need to build on it.