Hundreds of prisoners are to be made available to potential employers in some of the most labour-starved sectors of the economy.
An EU-funded programme, Connect, which aims to train and place prisoners coming to the end of their sentence, has been running in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin for two years. It will be extended to the State's main committal prisons in the autumn.
The sectors targeted by Connect are the catering, construction and computer industries. However, the director-general of the Prison Service, Mr Sean Aylward, said the programme would "talk to anyone" interested in employing and/or training prisoners.
About 200 prisoners at Mountjoy have completed the programme, with about 40 per cent getting jobs after their release. Some 51 per cent of prisoners have never had a job. A spokeswoman for the service said temporary release would be granted to allow prisoners near the end of their sentence an opportunity to work. The prisons involved will be Cork, Wheatfield, Castlerea and Limerick.
According to Mr Aylward, the concept is not new but gives structure to a practice that has existed informally for many years.
"In times of labour scarcity employers have always turned to the prisons. In 1993 I remember small hoteliers in the Munster area getting on to Limerick Prison looking to see if any of the lads, coming to the end of their sentence, would work as shortorder cooks. And the training prisoners get in our kitchens is second to none."
The objective of Connect, he said, was to establish creative pathways for prisoners hoping to work following their release.
"Central to it has been the collaboration between the Department of Justice and the National Training and Development Institute and it was all arranged within the framework of Integra."
Integra is an EU employment initiative aimed at promoting social inclusion. Among the State bodies involved in the Mountjoy Connect programme was CERT, the State training body for the tourism industry.
Employers had been largely positive about the initiative, he said, with few asking for detailed backgrounds of recruits. Backgrounds are not given without the prisoner's permission.
"Prisoners are by and large active, fit and healthy, and `up for it'. They want to work and it may be time for more employers to wake up and realise what a labour resource our prisons could be."
