Area Development Management manages programmes on behalf of the Irish Government and the European Union. The purpose of these programmes is to promote social inclusion, reconciliation and equality and to counter disadvantage through integrated local social and economic development. The Local Development Social Inclusion Programme is one of the programmes managed, on behalf of the Department of Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Partnerships, Community Groups and Employment Pacts deliver it at local level.

Stephan Rourke, on behalf of ADM, completed this study. It was based on an exploration of the work underway at local level by the funded groups with a view to developing further, and strengthening, responses within the Local Development Social Inclusion Programme to the integration and needs of ex-prisoners and offenders. The National Development Plan, the NESF Report on the ‘Reintegration of Prisoners’, the earlier Whittaker Report, and the work of the Crime Council all point to the rationale and need for shared concern and collaborative approaches to offender integration as the best way forward not only for offenders themselves but also for their communities.