Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 193: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform further to the recent approval of €500,000 from the Dormant Accounts Fund to provide addiction counselling and employment supports for prisoners and ex-prisoners and his stated objective of maximising the employment opportunities for prisoners and Ireland's responsibilities as a society, to actively try to help them fully reintegrate into society, his views on whether more needs to be done at a community level to achieve these objectives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37066/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I can advise the Deputy that €0.5 million was made available from the Dormant Accounts Fund in 2006 under the Economic and Social Disadvantage Category for projects supporting Prisoners / Ex Prisoners. The funding has been equally divided between addiction counselling and employability services for prisoners: €250,000 for addiction counsellors and €250,000 for employability services.

Applications for funding were sought primarily from community and voluntary groups who had experience of working with these target groups and who could deliver on actions relating to Addiction Counselling or Employment Supports. On 23 October, 2006, the Government announced approval of an allocation of €250,000 to four community organisations to provide addiction counselling services for prisoners in Dublin prisons and a further €250,000 to two projects to provide employment supports for prisoners in the Mountjoy and Midland campuses as well as in Castlerea and Cork prisons.

I believe that these initiatives are worthy contributions toward helping prisoners adopt law-abiding lives on release. Not only will these grants support innovative initiatives delivering services to prisoners, they will serve also to support the work of community groups in bridging the gap between prison and the community. Helping prisoners address their addictions and providing them with supports in relation to employability, both of which are important strands of Irish Prison Service strategy, benefits both the prisoners and the public safety of the community they will return to. The Irish Prison Service is endeavouring to intensify its engagement with community based agencies, both in the statutory and the community and voluntary sectors, with a view to achieving greater integration and coordination of the delivery of a range of support services to prisoners.

I also wish to advise the Deputy that my Department, through the Probation Service, provides funding to 66 Community Based Bodies which provide a range of services to offenders in local communities, e.g. pre-industrial training and education, offender management programmes, residential accommodation, drug and alcohol abuse treatment / intervention / awareness programmes etc.

I am pleased to tell the Deputy that I have secured funding of €24.096 million in 2007 by way of financial assistance for these Voluntary Community Bodies, which is a 19% increase on the 2006 allocation of €20.227 million.