Mr. Thomas Quigley:

I have been the manager of the ex-prisoners project in north Belfast, Tar Isteach, for the past 20 years. In fact, it is longer. Since 1999 we have been providing support for ex-prisoners in terms of welfare rights, counselling, training, employment and advocacy, all the issues and elements provided by Coiste na nIarchimí and Tar Anall. We are based in north Belfast. We see thousands of ex-prisoners every year. In the main, we have been receiving funding for our projects from the PEACE programme, but that has been haphazard and piecemeal. Sometimes it has been good. The only time it was sufficient was when PEACE III was in operation. Before and after that, there were no dedicated funds for supporting ex-prisoners.

We see the issues of ex-prisoners mainly concentrating on the barriers created by the criminal record that still remains 21 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Everyone else in society is allowed equality of rights, especially in terms of employment. In 2016, recommendations were made by the Fresh Start panel. We raised the issue of the Fair Employment and Treatment Order, which guarantees workers' rights and equality of rights for workers. There is a provision within the order that specifically denies the same rights to ex-prisoners. Section 2(4) has the proviso that anyone who supported violence does not have equality of rights as far as employment is concerned. You can legally discriminate against ex-prisoners with no problem whatsoever. You can legally refuse services to ex-prisoners. All you need to do is quote the Fair Employment and Treatment Order. Anyone who was imprisoned during the conflict is deemed to have supported violence, no matter what they were in for. The Fresh Start panel recommended that the Fair Employment and Treatment Order would be amended to take out the proviso about support for violence. That was back in 2016. It was the only recommendation in the report that it specifically asked would be addressed urgently, but it has not been addressed at all. At a meeting in the Wellington Park Hotel, I outlined what I just outlined here. I raised the issues of the Fair Employment and Treatment Order, equality for ex-prisoners, and the fact that state actors received more than £2 billion in support. Organisations were set up on their behalf. They were mainstream organisations. There are dozens of support organisations that anyone involved in the state can apply to and receive support from. Nothing was set up with the same structures and resources for ex-prisoners. Those state actors are not discriminated against in any way, but political ex-prisoners are. Most of the barriers to ex-prisoners come from that conflict-related conviction and they have a criminal record. They have problems with employment, insurance, travel and access to financial services, including mortgages and loans. We have difficulty navigating all the things most people take for granted. We meet a point-blank roadblock.

Those are the issues that still remain. They are the same issues that we spoke of three or four years ago. In the past we travelled to Dublin to raise the issue with the committee, and we met with the committee in the Wellington Park Hotel a few years ago. I know other people raised the issue of ex-prisoners with the committee. I know people were listening but whether they heard is another thing because nothing came out of any of those meetings. No actions were taken. None of our recommendations were ever implemented. The PEACE programme is the only programme that provided the same sort of support services that other actors in the conflict receive without any thought whatsoever. Since the end of PEACE III, that fund more or less dried up. We do a great deal of good relations work as part of the work that we do. The PEACE IV programme only provides resources to run good relations programmes. There are dozens of good relations programmes in the North, including the Central Good Relations Fund, which is basically the teabag strategy implemented by the Executive.

We had many good relations programmes already running when PEACE IV was introduced. It is another good relations programme, but it does not provide any support for ex-prisoners or any of the services they need in terms of welfare, welfare rights, counselling, physiotherapy, training and employment, all of which are things we know from our research and interaction with ex-prisoners they need. We have carried out a number of research reports over many years on ex-prisoners which, if members had time to read them, would enlighten them with regard to what ex-prisoners want and need and what needs to be addressed.

Basically, we need opportunities to engage with committees such as this committee and others that have influence. We have engaged previously with this committee and others but we are still waiting for someone to come up with the remedies for these issues. We need measures that will tackle the barriers that ex-prisoners face and ensure the provision of the supports that are needed for ex-prisoners who, in the main, are old aged now and dealing with all of the issues of old age with which everybody else is dealing. Their children and grandchildren are also facing issues because either their grandfather or grandmother has a criminal record. That is taken into account when they seek employment or want to travel or do all of the things that normal people want to do. That is the view from north Belfast.

We have done the best we can, along with the other ex-prisoner groups, to keep these projects going and to support ex-prisoners. It has been very difficult to get those resources and it is a struggle every day to keep these projects open. I will hand over to my colleague, John O'Hagan of Tar Anall, also in Belfast.