Mr. Michael Culbert:

I thank the Senator. She raised a number of broad issues, including employment. In many cases at the moment, and for some time back, it varies. We do a good deal of voluntary work. We also employ counsellors, advice workers and a limited number of staff as front-line personnel. The good relations unit in Stormont sometimes can assist with some funding. In many cases, we also have locally based enterprises such as local tourism projects that are able to employ tour guides for political tourism. In the main, we are quite restricted. Mr. Quigley spoke earlier about issues of employment and self-censorship. Some people are very well qualified but cannot get work. We try to help with basics. We generally try to assist people to self-help, for instance, to be self-employed as builders or taxi drivers at low-key levels.

The Senator also asked about the intergenerational and other effects of imprisonment on other members of the family. It is not only with the next generation. It can also affect the siblings of people who have been in prison. At the moment, brothers and sisters of political ex-prisoners who are disemployed cannot get employment because of the prison record of the sibling. It is as basic as that. I cannot propose people for employment. I have loyalists within the Coiste na nIarchimí network who work as tour guides but their children and their brothers and sisters who might have an affiliation with state forces including the British military and the PSNI are totally blocked from joining those forces. This issue is not confined to nationalist and republican ex-prisoners and their families. People in the loyalist community are blocked in the same way because of the status of their father or sibling. It is not only the ex-prisoners and their children who are affected by this whole issue of having been in prison during the conflict.