Representatives of Business in the Community Ireland are in attendance to speak about corporate responsibility and social inclusion. I believe this week is corporate responsibility week. Our guests have had a busy week. I thank them for coming. I welcome Mr. Kieran McGowan, chairman of Business in the Community Ireland. He is accompanied by Ms Tina Roche, the organisation's chief executive; Mr. Tomas Sercovich, the manager of its membership services team; and Mr. Paddy Richardson, the manager of its employment programmes division. I will not repeat the formal rules of the committee because the witnesses were present when I read them earlier. They are aware that they have certain parliamentary privilege but it is limited if they stray too far. They are very welcome. I thank them for taking the time to visit us. The members of the committee will be in and out because there are other things happening in the Oireachtas today. A few more of them will join us at a later stage. I invite Mr. McGowan to start the presentation.
Corporate Responsibility and Social Inclusion: Discussion
Mr. Kieran McGowan
I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for giving us an opportunity to meet them and say a little about Business in the Community Ireland. I will speak about who we are and what we do. In particular, I will elaborate on the new "Business working responsibly" mark we have devised. My colleague, Mr. Richardson, will talk about the criminal justice programmes we run. We hope to answer any questions that members might have about what we do and where we are going.
Business in the Community Ireland is a national organisation. It tries to harness the power of business to make an impact in its local area. As a network organisation, it enables businesses to learn from each other and improve each other's practices. I have a number of connections in my capacity as chairman of a construction group, CRH. A number of the company's good health and safety and climate control practices, for example, can be made available to other member companies. They can learn from us and we can learn from them. The network works very well in that way. Approximately 60 small and large companies, including multinationals and Irish companies, are members of Business in the Community Ireland. Between them, they employ 300,000 people.
We launched the "business working responsibly" mark a few months ago. It is the first time such a mark has been used to recognise corporate responsibility. The importance of the mark is that it is based on an independent assessment by the National Standards Authority of Ireland of the extent to which a company is meeting its various responsibilities with regard to the community, its employees and the environment etc. We think the establishment of this new mark is an important step. As we all know, the reputation of business has taken a bit of a hit in this country in the last few years. It is particularly important for a country that places such emphasis on inward investment to seek to improve the reputation of its companies. We have great companies, but if we are to continue to be an attractive location, the reputation of certain businesses needs to be upgraded, particularly in the financial services sector but also more generally.
Ms Roche and I have met Mr. Barry O'Leary of IDA Ireland to tell him about this new mark and to get his support. IDA Ireland is extremely supportive of the mark. It recognises that having a reputation of transparency and openness is an important part of the overall package that Ireland offers to companies. That we can be proud of the practices of our companies is also an important criterion in that context.
Not only do we want to tell the committee about the mark, but we also want to secure the help and support of members in regard to it. We think it is important for the Government to recognise companies that have this mark, for example by giving them enhanced procurement opportunities. There are several models of how governments in other countries recognise companies that have good practices in this area. We would be happy to tell the committee about how it is done in other countries. One of our key requests is for the assistance of the committee in trying to get the Government to take this seriously. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Richardson, to talk about criminal justice programmes.
Mr. Paddy Richardson
I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for meeting us. We sent summary documents and detailed information to the committee in advance of this meeting. I want to highlight some of the main issues about which we are seeking the committee's support. Business in the Community Ireland has five employment programmes and one education programme. We have grown and developed rapidly since 2000. We started by dealing with approximately 100 clients per annum and we now deal with more than 3,000 people each year across the five employment programmes. In addition, hundreds of students avail of our education programme, which is called Schools Business Partnership, each year.
I want to highlight some of our main issues. I will keep the more serious issues for the end of my contribution. Business in the Community Ireland runs two programmes outside the criminal justice area, the first of which is the EPIC - employment for people from immigrant communities - programme. All the programmes I have mentioned started as Government agency initiatives that we were subsequently asked to take up and run with. Our flagship programme - the Linkage programme - started in 2000 when the Probation Service approached Business in the Community Ireland to ask us to administer it and it grew from there. Our partners include the Probation Service, the Irish Prison Service, the Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration and FÁS. We are very inclusive. We are not an island in terms of how we do things. We network very strongly with other agencies. We could not work without that support and, in particular, without the funding that is needed to maintain the level of support we currently enjoy.
After three years, the EPIC programme is finally going to public tender. We hope it will continue for a further three years. EU funding is available to that end. Although it is successful, we understand there is a strong possibility that its funding will be cut further. To date, the programme has employed over 660 people from 64 different countries. We are continuing to meet our target of employing at least 105 people under the programme each year.
We continue to have to strain to get Government support and recognition for our work programme for homeless people, which is the only programme of its kind in Dublin. It is beyond us that we should have to do so, given that employment is the outcome of the programme. We have been through this with the former Administration. We walked the corridors of power to look for support. Finally, FÁS gave us a significant element of support for the programme but we need more assistance. It is now being considered by the Department of Social Protection. We have funding until the end of this year and we hope it will be possible for the programme to continue into the new year with stronger funding and with a stronger partnership. If it continues with FÁS, that will be fine as long as we can get the funding that is needed. We have some concerns in that regard.
I propose to talk about the three criminal justice programmes as a family of programmes rather than going through each one on its own. As I said, the linkage programme is our flagship programme in this area. We provide a service known as the gate service in prison. The linkage programme is funded by the Probation Service. All of its staff are based in probation offices throughout the country - we have full coverage. It is the only national programme of its kind in Ireland. The gate service was established after Ms Roche and I attended an Oireachtas joint committee meeting in 2003 to talk about the expunging of sentences, which we will mention again later in this meeting.
Members of the Irish Prison Service who were present in the Visitors Gallery heard about the Linkage programme. We have had a strong partnership with the Irish Prison Service since in so far as we have a number of staff covering six prisons nationwide. The Linkage programme is also constrained by the availability of funding and may well be further constrained before the end of the year.
The other programme is a mentoring programme for which a pilot phase has concluded. It deals with people with chaotic lifestyles who have been imprisoned for long periods and would not succeed outside prison without a significant amount of what we describe as "hand-holding" and the support of other programmes such as the gate service or linkage programme. As the mentoring programme does not administer funding, having recently completed its pilot phase, I expect that it will stop this year, which would be an extremely sad development as many people would miss out on opportunities to be reintegrated and resettled. "Reintegration" and "resettlement" are phrases that recently appeared in a speech by the Minister for Justice and Equality who has a specific interest in the resettlement of prisoners. Commencing this month, a number of people will come out of prison who would not ordinarily be released and we have been asked to provide support by having our staff offer this group a mentoring and resettlement service. We intend to provide such support.
The main point is that all of the programmes to which I have referred are under threat as a result of Government cutbacks. The programmes have been shown to provide value for money. Independent audits have demonstrated they cost at most €5,000 per job and providing a placement, if one likes, for someone who would not ordinarily be given a placement costs €2,000 per annum. We did not appear before the joint committee to ask for more money, but if we do receive more funding, we will invest it in the people for whom we work. We are pleading with members to ensure our funding is not cut further in order that we can continue to provide a service and help to pursue the Government's agenda of returning people to employment. That is the purpose of Business in the Community Ireland.
I have set out the general position on the employment programmes. The jewel in the crown of Business in the Community Ireland is the schools business partnership, with which Ms Roche is better acquainted than I am. A decade ago the Government asked Business in the Community Ireland to consider doing some work on the schools completion programme. The schools business partnership was our response to that request. More than 18,000 students have since successfully engaged with the partnership and more than 160 companies have been involved with more than 160 schools. It is run on the basis of matching funding and continues to operate well. I do not believe there are problems with the partnership which is well supported.
I will raise one further issue, one which we also raised when we appeared before the joint committee's predecessor in 2003, namely, the absence of provisions on spent convictions, one of the greatest barriers preventing our clients from moving forward. If one has a criminal record at the age of 14 or 15 years, one keeps it for life. It would be common sense to wipe the slate clean in certain categories to give people a chance to move on. We have nearly reached that point.
The Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality will deal with some of the issues raised and we can make recommendations to it. As we could not facilitate the request concerning the business map, perhaps Ms Roche might like to refer to it before we take questions.
Ms Tina Roche
We have been trying to show the impact business has on communities. I am sure members will be interested in the impact it has on their respective areas. We have mapped what businesses are doing at a local level. In 2010, for instance, 35 major companies were engaged in approximately 3,500 community partnerships. The map I have circulated allows people to drill down into their own communities and shows all the community partners. On a national level, it shows that the 35 companies in question spent €17 million, of which €11 million was in cash, approximately €2.5 million in product benefits and the remainder in matched donations. The extraordinary fact to emerge from the map was that in 2010 the 35 companies in question allocated 140,000 volunteer hours. This is the first time we have been able to articulate the impact of business on the social agenda.
Does Mr. Sercovich wish to add anything?
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
I will add two points. The map is a very exciting resource as it shows the impact Business in the Community Ireland has on communities. It is even more interesting to note that when one speaks to those in business, they argue that their involvement with us is very much a business issue. It is not necessarily about philanthropy or giving back to the community for the sake of it or because we are good corporate citizens. Companies with which we work closely, including Intel, will clearly articulate the benefit they derive from being active in their local communities. This is a critical point.
To add to Mr. McGowan's comments on the business working responsibly mark, this is a great opportunity for Ireland to show leadership in this regard. Governments in several countries across Europe are encouraging and promoting corporate responsibility. Next year we understand the European Commission will propose regulations that will increase the reporting requirements of businesses on non-financial performance. Later this year another communication from the Commission will specifically urge member states to develop action plans on corporate social responsibility. Ireland has a unique opportunity to lead the way or be seen as one of the leading countries in this regard.
We will change the order of questioners to allow Deputy Halligan to contribute first as he is in a rush. Is that agreed? Agreed.
On the criminal justice programme for adults, the block imposed by insurance companies is a problem. I have dealt with such a case in Waterford. Do all insurance companies apply such a block? Has Business in the Community Ireland attempted to speak to the Financial Regulator, the Ombudsman or members of the Government about the issue?
On spent convictions, I am a firm believer in rehabilitation. Even some gardaí consider the current system antiquated in that it results in people with minor convictions having a lifelong criminal record. I know of a chap with a minor conviction who is having difficulty. What contacts has Business in the Community Ireland had with the Minister for Justice and Equality and his predecessor on this issue which is larger than many believe? I am dealing with a case of a person who was convicted for forging a cheque 15 years ago and who has been precluded from taking a specific job.
On homelessness, I note Business in the Community Ireland has engaged with more than 50 companies in Dublin which have provided work experience. Did many companies outside Dublin provide such experience?
Ms Tina Roche
I will address the most strategic question asked by the Deputy, namely, our work on the issue of expungement of sentences or spent sentences. We have been working on this issue since 2001. Every Minister with responsibility for justice issues has since promised to do something to address the issue. We all know criminal records are a major barrier to reintegration. If one discloses on an application form to an employer that one has a criminal record, the application will be placed at the bottom of the pile. Under the Equality Act, one may discriminate against people from a criminal background. The areas affected include employment in local councils and An Post. What we do is label people at an early age and this label persists through adulthood. We have repeatedly contacted the Department of Justice and Equality and every Minister has indicated he or she will do something about it, but nothing happens. The Government must address the issue in the current term.
The former Minister of State, Mr. Barry Andrews, introduced a Bill providing for the absolute minimum required. His legislation dealt only with people who had served a sentence of less than six months. We need a wider framework if we are to address the criminal justice area. We have also encouraged other partners to try to address this issue. I ask that it be addressed and the committee report on it.
As a committee we cannot delve into the research but we will certainly instruct the other committee to deal with it and we can make a recommendation that these should be investigated by the Minister. We will not be able to spend much research time on it but we can certainly help to push it along.
Ms Tina Roche
A good deal of research has been done by the Law Reform Commission. Several reports have been done - it is a matter of just doing it. We are past the research stage.
What I meant was that under our brief as a committee we cannot be the driving force behind it. It has to go through a second committee.
Ms Tina Roche
Yes.
We have no problem in driving that committee to do it.
Can we make a recommendation?
We certainly can.
Ms Tina Roche
May I answer the question on the financial and the insurance ombudsman? We have not gone to the financial ombudsman but we will take that up from today. We have gone through the individual companies to try to get a response and they are doing it on a case by case basis. If we could get the expungement of sentence that would certainly help. On the homelessness question we are funded only for Dublin. Some 75% of all homelessness is within Dublin, the rest of it is within Cork and Galway. If we could find the funding, we would like to do Cork and Galway.
Are those companies based in Dublin?
Ms Tina Roche
They are based in Dublin but they have branches in Cork. Of our 60 members, 43 have branches in Cork so we would have a very good response if we could get the funding for Cork.
Just to clarify, those companies could be available from the map. Is that correct?
Ms Tina Roche
They are in the map.
One can log on to-----
Ms Tina Roche
The address is bitc.ie
Can I begin by making a request to the committee on a housekeeping matter? It is unfortunate that committee meetings are clashing with so many other meetings, even the Order of Business and Leaders' Questions. It means that many Members who would wish to attend the committee cannot do so because they must be elsewhere. For example, the Scottish Parliament has its committee meetings on particular days and plenary sittings on other days. It is important that we seek reform in that regard to ensure delegations such as Business in the Community Ireland are fully heard by all the members of a particular committee.
I welcome the delegation and pay tribute to all the good work in which it is involved. It is important that people start to spend their money in companies and businesses that have a strong social responsibility. It is excellent that the issue of the mark is promoted. Are there any legal issues that would affect or enhance the procurement discrimination towards a company with a mark and, if so, how can we resolve that issue? With regard to the expunging of sentences, a constituent of mine in Meath was made redundant following the collapse of the building industry. He had stolen a pair of socks and a shirt when he was 16 or 17 years of age. He completed a security course to become a security person, at the end of which he found he could not do that security work and he is unemployed. It is ridiculous that almost 30 years later this individual is still being punished for such a minor offence. Is Business in the Community Ireland a national organisation operating only in the South and does it operate in the North?
Mr. Paddy Richardson
I may have caused some confusion because I said the newsletter was conveniently available at a Cork event this time last month. It is a national organisation in all its sense of meaning and purpose.
Ms Tina Roche
We have a sister organisation, Business in the Community Northern Ireland.
I understand. So many people have great skills and experience having been in the workforce for the past 20 years but they still find it difficult to set up businesses. The work of the organisation in that area is very important. There is also the legal issues around the mark and of expunging the offences. I met a couple of organisations, among them FIT which is industry led. I will paraphrase what it said as I do not want to misrepresent the organisation in any way. It felt that sometimes State organisations, in providing courses and training, do not necessarily choose people who come from the margins, or with a low level of educational attainment or who may have committed an offence in the past. Often they choose people who come from a stronger educational background. Is that the experience of the organisation and, if so, what can the State do to resolve that issue?
There are a few questions that can be shared out.
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
Just on the procurement question, there is no violation of competition issues. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has drawn up a draft national action plan on green public procurement. It clearly states the different stages of the process. Within the products specification and the product service specification the procuring authority can specify whatever requirement it wishes. That would include certain labels of certification, for example, Bord Bia's traceability mark or a particular environmental management system, certified on the ISO standards. That would fit there but it would not be allowed in the qualification criteria because there are clear rules on cost and so on. The final stage, which is the awarding criteria, procuring authorities might look favourably at certifications such as this. That would be our request because obviously it is not allowed to break any competition regulation.
What countries can we learn from?
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
From our experience the Netherlands has the best process because not only does it look at the green criteria, which is the case with the current draft of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, but it looks at the whole sustainability criteria so it looks at the social and environmental criteria of products and services. They also look at the way the products are being manufactured by the companies that are procuring. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government stated that €15 billion is the procurement bill of this country. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity to make a major influence on businesses by selecting or looking after preferred suppliers that have this type of criteria.
Mr. Paddy Richardson
On the question about courses and in regard to FIT, we are the only national organisation that has a protocol with FÁS, the Irish Prison Service and the probation and welfare service. The reason I say that is that we have that level of expertise and networking in regard to identifying and assessing people for specific types of training. Our staff are very qualified in that regard. We have also managed, through the protocols, to get people prioritised, for example, those coming from prison and the marginalised, to get into the mainstream courses where possible.
There was an issue last year where, because of the very quick reduction in the loss of jobs, that it was those who were six months out of work were being prioritised. We had to get back in and battle to get our people into mainstream courses again. We have arrangements not only with FÁS but we are now working protocols with the VEC in order to move people into the education side. We did not mention that we work also with sex offenders and with other agencies around that. Again we have protocols on developing those and channelling people from all backgrounds and with all sorts of criminal records. It is our belief in Business in the Community Ireland that it is important to take responsibility in some shape or form for people coming back into the communities. The other side is that we need communities to take responsibility for the reintegration of those people as well. It is our view that particularly people who have a sex offence background should be kept above the radar than coming out of prison and nobody knowing where they are. We are making progress in getting the people with whom we deal into mainstream programmes as fast as possible. We are also developing programmes in conjunction with major companies such as IBM and BT. BT provides training facilities to people in the EPIC programme on technology. Great contributions have been made in different ways and we are making it happen by interacting with the various groups, and by trying to be more effective in what we do.
I welcome the delegation. It is great to see anybody, corporate or otherwise, promoting social responsibility. It is a particularly apt time to reflect on that, given that we have experienced a time when business and many other sectors have caused calamity due to irresponsibility.
There may have been an initiative before the Dáil in respect of spent convictions. I remember being at a workshop organised by the Law Reform Commission in which people were brought over from England and Scotland to talk about their experience in obtaining reforms to expunge these convictions, where some child did something quite petty and it remained on his record for all time. I am new to the Dáil, but can you recall if we had an initiative before the Dáil about this?
I cannot, but I think there was. We can certainly recommend that the Bill dealing with this be examined to see if it can be expanded.
It was very useful and enlightening in that respect, and perhaps the committee should have been told about it.
Ms Tina Roche
That has been now been brought into the Children Act, as the carrying forward of sentences is now within it for children. There is a precedent, but we now need it for adults.
This was in respect of adults.
We might get the details of that and forward them on. We will also try to get the justice committee to deal with it as well.
I am interested in the business responsibility mark. The delegation has indicated that the NSAI is its auditing partner. Is there a written standard at this stage? What are the delegation's plans for that? It is obviously something for which companies would need to apply. Is it something that they would then have to top up annually? How frequent are the audits? Can the companies lose the standard? Is there an ISO standard for this area of working responsibility?
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
It is not a standard, but is technically defined as an award scheme. It basically consists of a very lengthy questionnaire that we have developed. We worked with a steering committee which comprises some of the companies that work with us, some standards development experts and a representative from the NSAI. We looked at what was best in the class in terms of tool kits that would help companies assess the whole extent of their corporate responsibility or their non-financial performance, and determine which would be the benchmarks for those companies to measure their performance.
With that in mind, we developed a questionnaire which comprises 296 questions under 26 different indicators that relate to all the various areas of the operation of a business, from product procurement to working conditions, environmental performance, governance procedures and so on. Each of the 26 indicators is divided into three sections. We are trying to analyse companies' policies and whether they are in place, particular practices related to the implementation of those policies, and most importantly, the impact that those practices are having on the business and ultimately on the bottom line. This goes back to my earlier example about the involvement with local communities. It is not just about giving back to a community for the sake of it, but about a business benefit.
Companies have to apply for it. Any company can apply. The scheme is aimed mainly at large companies, which was our strategic decision, but we see this as something that could be tailored for smaller businesses. We only launched this in March, so at the moment it is aimed mainly at large companies. Companies that apply for it complete an online questionnaire. To get the "business working responsibly" mark, they must be subject to an audit. For transparency reasons, the audit must be conducted by a third party and in this case, we chose to work with the NSAI. That authority conducts a comprehensive audit and checks for the existence of evidence that will relate to the statements companies made when answering the questionnaire. We look at particular policies, procedures and evidence. Once a company has been successful, criteria are set to obtain the mark, such as the number of points and the distribution of the points within the questionnaire. The company is then awarded the mark and tomorrow, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will present the first four companies with the certificate.
Companies are certified for a period of two years. They may lose that certification if information is brought to us that a statement provided is not true or that a company had brought the whole scheme into disrepute. There are clear standard procedures, so if a company acts irresponsibly, we are entitled to withdraw the certification. This process is more than two years in development. Companies would see a great deal of value in having this type of certification, either because they are procuring to other companies in the private sector and are being asked questions about their own practice and procedure or because companies tell us all the time that they want to benchmark their performance and want to know who is best in the class. Companies also want to understand how they can improve their practices on an ongoing basis. We not only provide them with certification; we provide a very comprehensive feedback report that will allow them to improve on all those practices. This is a live system in that we update the questionnaire every 18 months to look at new areas of business performance that are relevant or defined under corporate responsibility.
There is not an ISO standard per se in this area. The ISO organisation launched a guidance document last year, known as ISO 26000, which provides general guidance but is not developed for certification purposes. It just provides general guidance to businesses. Every clause of this ISO 26000 guidance document has been incorporated into our scheme, because both of them were developed on a parallel basis. Globally, there is not anything else. We talk to different companies and they tell us they would prefer ISO schemes or their own company scheme, so different companies have different approaches. However, there are companies, many of those we work with in Business in the Community, which clearly see the value of this.
So the audit process will reference these ISO guidance procedures.
Ms Tina Roche
It does already.
Mr. Paddy Richardson
We can provide the Deputy with the document on that and we can have it circulated.
Members here will want to do more research on this with the full committee, so we want to inform them.
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
The document is a line-by-line comparison of the clauses included in ISO 26000 and the corresponding questions in our indicators.
What drives a company to want to achieve this mark? Is it usually an individual in the company with a good conscience?
Mr. Kieran McGowan
I would say it is somebody at senior management who has the view that he wants to make the reputation of his company better. He wants to achieve excellence across a number of measures and this gives him a way of achieving that. Like many things, it comes down to the leadership of the company and the priority it gives to various different factors. If a company has good, visionary leaders, there is a good chance it will want to adopt this. My guess is that if we were back here in a few years' time, many companies would have applied for the mark - bigger companies would apply first and they would hopefully encourage their suppliers to do so as well.
What can the committee do to help move that forward?
Mr. Kieran McGowan
There is one big thing it can do. We would like to encourage smaller companies to participate, and to achieve this we would like to be able to say to them that if they pass the test, which is actually very rigorous, there is a prize in that the Government will recognise the achievement in its willingness to procure from those companies. The committee can help us by saying to the Government that the mark system that is being developed is a good thing for the country because the business sector as a whole will improve if the mark catches on. If it is a good thing for the country, why would the Government not back it?
We will certainly seek for the weighting to be adjusted; it is not just a question of cost.
I have one last comment about the development of standards. Accounting bodies all over the world develop standards for financial statements on a regular basis. There is a move towards environmental and social responsibility. Does the business community engage with the standard-setting bodies, or are they a separate thing altogether?
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
To date, most of our engagement has been with the National Standards Authority of Ireland, but we also envisage working with some of the accountancy firms, which will obviously be more involved in this area as it evolves. The whole concept of integrated reporting, for instance, is now being discussed globally, not only with regard to financial reporting by companies but with regard to non-financial reporting on a joint basis. This is something that accountancy bodies will have to be involved in.
It is fair to say that this is an area in which we could really rebuild our reputation as a country through business. That is the key message.
Ms Tina Roche
Without a doubt.
Does anyone wish to add concluding comments?
Mr. Tomas Sercovich
The mark presents an interesting opportunity for IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. When we go overseas to promote Ireland as a destination for foreign direct investment, this is a clear and transparent way of communicating about the practices of the suppliers that large companies might have in Ireland. We have evidence of that from Abbot Laboratories and Pfizer. Speaking to some of their key people from the US, we were told that is something they consider when making investment decisions. From the point of view of Enterprise Ireland, there is a precedent whereby Enterprise Ireland used to provide part-financing to companies that wished to obtain the ISO 14001 environmental certification. Maybe a similar scheme could be considered for smaller companies that want to be certified under a system such as this. It would be an interesting recommendation that the committee might want to discuss.
Mr. Kieran McGowan
I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for having us here and giving us an opportunity to make our case. I ask them to support us on the mark system and expunging sentences.
We had two presentations the day before yesterday in Cork that made a big impact on me. One was from a guy who had been in prison and had benefited from a mentoring service. He is now out and is talking about his experience and seeking a connection with a company. This was a major issue for him - talking to about 60 people from business; he was shaking. The story of what he had gone through had a big impact. He lost his family and so on when he was in prison and now he is out and trying to get reconnected to society, and he was getting a great deal of help from Mr. Richardson's mentoring and linkage programme. A company representative who was there listening to him spoke to him about the possibility of giving him an opportunity. It is hard to beat that kind of work.
That was followed by a lady from another company who spoke about her experience as a mentor to a child in a disadvantaged school from fifth year, when the girl did not want to finish her leaving certificate. The mentor had a great deal of trouble trying to connect to this girl almost like a parent, and it was an on-off relationship throughout fifth year. Eventually, the lady convinced her she should stay on and do the leaving certificate, which she did. She got a very good leaving certificate and is now in her third year at the institute of technology. That is good work. Those are the kinds of programmes we are running, and that is why we need the committee's support.
Mr. Paddy Richardson
I would like to make one more point. We can help the Government's agenda in two key areas: we can reduce overcrowding in prisons, and we can get people into employment.
On behalf of the committee, I thank the representatives for coming in today. As a committee, we will spend more time researching this. We will pass on some of the issues to the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and make sure it addresses them. I understand from its Chairman that the members of that committee would also like to invite the representatives to discuss this. However, there is much work we can do with regard to the mark and the issue of corporate responsibility. The reason the committee agreed to invite the representatives today is that we are interested in this. We will inform the rest of the members and discuss it further. We might need to engage further with the representatives to obtain certain information, but at the end of the process we will make recommendations to the various Ministers on what we want done and try to follow it through. We will inform the representatives of the recommendations we make. I thank them on behalf of the group.