Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issue of barriers to ex-prisoners has come up previously; collectively or as individual groups, have the witnesses identified the different barriers that exist with regard to adoption, insurance and so on? It might be helpful were the witnesses to provide formally to the joint committee a list of such barriers, which hopefully could then put it through the relevant Government structures. Do the witnesses perceive the difficulty in part to be that the process came out of the Good Friday Agreement and that different individuals were then involved in the parties that signed up to the Good Friday Agreement, namely, the two Governments? It probably is easier for such people, be they from the Conservative Party, Fine Gael, the Labour Party or whatever, to state another Government was in office at that time. One element of the agreement was that it was not something that was to stand still but instead was to progress and to develop. This is where the witnesses' role comes in, that is, with regard to the inclusive element to society and so on. While I am sure this is causing huge frustration to the witnesses' own organisations, so too is scrambling around trying to get payments. I note there is no funding stream and that was never worked out. How do the witnesses respond to those cynics in society who would say that 15 years on, it is time to pack up and move back to being a normal society? Some minority submissions that were received in respect of funding, PEACE IV and so on suggested that rather than wasting time on ex-prisoners' groups and so on, there should be investments in economic projects and positive things for society, mar dhea. How do the witnesses respond to that?