Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason the CONNECT project was abolished; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14136/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I am informed by the Director General of the Irish Prison Service that CONNECT was piloted with EU Integra Funding in the years prior to 2000 and was announced as part of the 2000 to 2006 National Development Plan. Expenditure under the programme consisted in the main, of staff salaries and materials for the work training area. CONNECT consisted of three strands: work training (including Special Projects); sentence management; and capital projects.

CONNECT's original focus was on vocational orientation and training for prisoners, combined with job placement at the time of release. CONNECT in its structure was intended to permit other needs of prisoners (which may impact on their employability) to be addressed through the services available within prison. An internal Irish Prison Service review of CONNECT was carried out in 2002. The result of which was a decision to refocus the project to concentrate on the Work Training area. It was decided that the sentence management elements needed to be aligned more centrally within the prison system rather than residing in the work training area. This change in focus was subsequently agreed by the Regional Monitoring Committees that monitor the NDP during the Mid-term Review Process.

The refocus towards the provision of enhanced prevocational and vocational training in Irish prisons involved dedicated new staffing and funding for the expansion of work training in the prison system. The Work Training Service now comprises an authorised complement of over 250 posts — a major increase on the numbers engaged prior to the Agreement for Organisational Change of 158, resulting in new activities and workshops, and over €5 million has been spent in the last two years alone, on the ongoing workshop refurbishment and equipment replacement programme. New workshops and activities are also continuing to be developed at various institutions. Furthermore, a Quality Assurance System (QAS) is being introduced to underpin FETAC certification of a range of vocational and employability programmes and courses.

Currently we have over 90 workshops operating across the prison estate. The new prison development at Thornton Hall will provide extensive work training facilities, providing vocational skills to upwards of 700 prisoners each day. The learning from CONNECT, in respect of such other aspects as individual programme planning, and indeed from new interventions piloted in other initiatives such as the EQUAL project, a European Social Fund (ESF) programme, is being taken into account in the development and rollout of Integrated Sentence Management (ISM). ISM, which is being funded under the new National Development Plan, will provide for initial risk and needs assessments, individualised plans and targeted service delivery to prisoners. ISM will be delivered progressively over the lifetime of the NDP.