Mr. Thomas Quigley:

To give some perspective to the numbers, it is believed that there are nearly 40,000 ex-prisoners altogether. They are in pockets scattered around the country. I can give an example. We are working in the New Lodge Road area of Belfast. It is a small working-class area, right on the peace line between the Shankill Road and Tiger's Bay, with a population of 5,000. We have on our register more than 600 ex-prisoners just from that small area. That is between 10% and 12% of the population of the area. It is the same in Ardoyne, in west Belfast, Derry and places like Lurgan. That is a high percentage in those pockets. Around 10% or 12% of the local population have an ex-prisoner in their family and that is replicated all over the North.

On the funding we received from the PEACE programme, the funding from PEACE II was relatively small. From PEACE III, there was a significant amount of money. Under PEACE IV, there was again a relatively small amount of funding and that was for the 12 counties of the North. We tried to set up a network of co-ordinators to undertake good relations work within those areas but the reason those groups exist and the reason the organisations like Tar Isteach, Tar Anall and the groups in Derry, Monaghan and Louth were set up was to support ex-prisoners. They do good relations work and always have. They have always done peace and reconciliation work. That is part of the work they do but they are there, in the main, in order to support ex-prisoners because they are the only organisations that are speaking for ex-prisoners. The vast majority of research that has been carried out in respect of political ex-prisoners has been by groups like ours. We have done five different research projects in the past 15 years and the reports relating to them are used widely to show what is happening within the ex-prisoner community. Very few other groups, academic or otherwise, are taking up those research projects unless we instigate them.

One thing that was touched on earlier is that findings are not gradually getting better for ex-prisoners. There has been an ongoing campaign from day one from people who did not support the Good Friday Agreement in the main within the DUP, and now within the Traditional Unionist Voice, TUV, who are actively working to restrict the rights of ex-prisoners every day of their lives. There has just been a further attempt by Jim Allister to introduce another Bill that would specifically restrict the rights of ex-prisoners. It would apply to nobody else; just ex-prisoners. He is not interested in anyone other than republican ex-prisoners, by the way. No matter what he says, that is what it is about. His special adviser, SPAD, Bill was another very successful campaign on his part to restrict the rights of ex-prisoners. He and his like are trying every day to restrict the rights of ex-prisoners even further than they already have been. There is no better example than the new pension scheme, which specifically excludes ex-prisoners.