Jackie Anderson wants a job. His CV may not be lengthy, the gap in his employment record less than impressive, but the 39-year-old has done courses in weight training and practised yoga and would like to be paid to pass on these skills - skills honed in an H-Block.

A UVF member, Anderson walked free from the Maze under the early release scheme almost two years ago after serving five years of a 10-year sentence for "getting caught with a bomb". Born and bred on the Shankill Road in Belfast, he now spends most of his time there, in the West Belfast Athletic and Cultural Society, set up by other ex-prisoners as a mini-recreational centre.

Upstairs, the friendly former paramilitary works out in the red-and-white-painted gym, where up to 100 locals pay the £1 entrance fee to use the facilities three times a week. Downstairs there is a changing room, a shower and a tiny sauna built by ex-prisoners who picked up joinery skills inside. Women's groups do aerobics here and there is a pensioners' night. "We also get young kids in and teach them about our culture," he says, pointing at a colourful painting, a scene of the Battle of the Somme.

"We hope we can give them direction, steer them away from drugs - as we're ex-prisoners they look up to us." The group is looking for funding and hoping to move to a new premises where the members can set up proper weight-training courses and offer employment to their own.

After the end of the initial celebratory mood, a phase still being experienced by those recently released from the Maze, life outside is a struggle, according to a group of loyalist ex-prisoners who sit in the centre chatting about how they have coped since their release.

Some outside republican and loyalists communities may find it hard to muster much sympathy for the estimated 20,000 or more people incarcerated for politically motivated crime in Northern Ireland over the last 30 years. Their prison records mean they will not secure jobs in the dominant public sector, and few in the private sector are interested either.

If their property was damaged, they could be denied compensation. The difficulties for ex-prisoners span everything from qualifying for a taxi licence to adopting a child. Securing a visa to visit the US is virtually impossible and should they visit the UK, they will at best be interrogated by police and could be sent back home.

What some might see as justifiable barriers are viewed as discriminatory by others. Cllr Michael Ferguson of republican prisoner support group Tar Anall said these "vestiges of discrimination" might re-create "the conditions that caused the conflict in the first place. It is an issue that affects a significant percentage of the population.

"After-care and resettlement of prisoners who wouldn't have been incarcerated except for the conflict is essential if we are to give everyone a stake in the peace process. Equality is key. Who is to say some victims are more worthy than others?"

The reality for ex-prisoners is that the only avenues open to them are provided by their own communities. This includes work in local bars or nightclubs, on building sites or in the numerous community groups that have sprung up in Belfast in recent years.

Rosie McCorley (43) was the first republican woman to be released under the Belfast Agreement after serving nine years of three concurrent sentences of 22 years for possession of explosives and attempted murder. Since her release two years ago she has worked in a bar, done some temping work secured through a friend in a management consultancy firm and taught at a local Irish-language school. She has been in her current post at Coiste, the umbrella body for republican prisoner-groups, for a year, where she witnesses first hand the difficulties faced by ex-prisoners.

"The whole irony is that the very nature of your arrest, the way you were processed and the laws that dictated how you were imprisoned and how you were actually released showed the political nature of your conviction . . . and yet when you walk out of the prison you are faced with these barriers that seem to fly in the face of the agreement." Coiste is campaigning for ex-prisoners' records to be cleared. "It is the easiest way to deal with it," said McCorley.

UVF member Eddie Kinner, jailed in 1975 for planting a bomb which killed a woman when it went off in Conway's Pub on the Shore Road, completed a degree in maths and computing while in the Maze. When he was released in 1988 he sent off 20 letters each day with his CV.

He says 90 per cent of these were ignored, those who did give him an interview said they could not give him a job with his record. He was eventually employed by a engineering company, which he left to take up an IT position with NIACRO (Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders).

Sitting in his office on the Lower Ormeau Road, Kinner said he believes it may be more difficult for the more recently released prisoners to reintegrate. "Those of us who spent longer terms in prison had time to reflect on why we were there, some who have just got out will still have their war heads on," he said.

And while ex-prisoner groups have little to be joyful about in terms of securing wider employment for members, there are some positive developments. Ken Cleland, who runs printing company Graham and Heslip in Newtownbreda just outside Belfast, acknowledges that he is an exception when it comes to employers in the private sector. He has employed several loyalist ex-prisoners and two years ago helped set up a group, Proj-EX 2000, to facilitate contacts between employers and loyalist and republican prisoners' aid groups.

"I have had nothing but positive experiences through working with these people: many of my other employees have overcome certain prejudices they had," he said. "We want to give ex-prisoners a fair chance, not extra help, not a leg up, but a chance the same as anybody else."

Cleland got involved because many former employees had become involved in paramilitary activity. "We knew the people they were, we knew they weren't bad people. There was certainly a feeling of `There but for the grace of God go I,' " he said. Cleland has only employed ex-loyalist prisoners and feels that among smaller companies like his, it is inevitable that "you will stick to your own side".

There are many practical benefits for the employer of putting ex-prisoners on the payroll, he said. "We have found that due to their past experiences they are better timekeepers, have better attendance records and are more committed to the company."

Former republican prisoner Tommy Gorman now heads Proj-EX 2000. There are ex-prisoners who have set up their own businesses and have done well, he said, but many others who manage to break through do so by telling lies. "The closing down of a lot of big factories such as Goodyear allowed people to explain away gaps in their employment history by saying they worked there. It was impossible to check and so they got on that way," he said.

Gorman said that due to the studious nature of many ex-prisoners a lot of them are highly educated and qualified but because of their records have severely limited options.

"You see people standing at the door of clubs who have Ph.Ds and degrees. There are lots of examples on both sides - one man I know is a doctor of philosophy but is working as a night watchman," he said.