Mr. Paul O'Donnell:

The Irish Association for the Social Integration of Offenders has two training and employment officers based in the Probation Service in Cork. We find them to be very effective. They provide particular support to our participants in returning to education or progression to the workplace.

I highlight the importance of networking in the absence of infinite funding. We network with many other organisations in Cork in terms of the resources we may have and the resources they may have. I cannot understate the importance of the IASIO training employment officers to our participants.

We have a community employment scheme on our full-time programme that runs for participants in recovery from addiction through a community employment model for 19.5 hours a week. These are special category substance misuse community employment placements. Participants engage in education, training, work experience, therapeutic massage, acupuncture, personal development and group work. We have a therapeutic masseuse who attends once a week and an acupuncturist who attends twice a week. We have general group work that we would set up, as I mentioned previously, through the health action zone, including suicide awareness training.

I refer members to page 6 of the briefing document which gives a breakdown of other programme areas.

These comprise occupational first aid, preparation for work, food and nutrition, food and cookery, information technology, woodcraft, personal and interpersonal skills, horticulture - seeding and propagation, and vegetable growing, which we would link in directly to providing seasonal produce for the café. It is possible to run this programme because we have an excellent team. They are a dedicated bunch.