Ms Caron McCaffrey:

I will answer some of these very quickly and I am happy to follow up afterwards with specific data. In terms of recidivism we know that after three years 61.7% of people reoffend. For me this is 40% of people who do not reoffend. Many of those who do reoffend are stuck in a cycle where they do not have access to employment on release and they still have addiction issues. It is about taking a holistic approach to addressing people's needs in prison and not only education. With regard to what success looks like, from the Prison Service's perspective, and I know our colleagues in education will agree, what we need is society to give people a second chance when they come out of custody and for people not to be labelled because of their conviction. Many people who invest time and energy in developing themselves in custody come out very different people. We have an employment and social enterprise strategy. We are trying to work with employers to give people a second chance. This is having some positive benefits. We are looking forward to working on this.

With regard to prison involvement what we have learned during Covid is that peer involvement is critical. Among the programmes we deliver is the peer mediation in prison course in conjunction with the Traveller Mediation Service. I was at a graduation last week where there was talk about using the graduates to develop and deliver the class in future. We know the peer-to-peer element is very important. The curriculum is not static. It evolves and it is down to the needs, desires and wishes of people in the classrooms. I will ask Ms Higgins to speak on Traveller Pride. I am happy to follow up on some of the other questions that we have not had time to address.