Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I welcome two officials from the Department to provide us with a briefing. I welcome Ricky Irwin, a grade 5 in the equality, rights and identity directorate, and Carolyn Mada, a grade 7 in Communities in Transition (CIT). You are both welcome, and I apologise for the delay. As you will have seen, we had quite a lot of questions about the Executive Office budget. I appreciate your patience. Go ahead, if you would like to make your opening remarks.

Mr Ricky Irwin (The Executive Office): Thank you, Chair. I thank everyone for the invitation to update the Committee. We are conscious that it is the first opportunity for the Committee to hear about the work being delivered by Communities in Transition, which is part of the Executive programme on paramilitarism and organised crime (EPPOC). Through the CIT element of the programme, TEO has been able to deliver a wide range of projects, which have helped to support communities that face the negative influences of paramilitarism, criminality and organised crime that still, unfortunately, exist in our communities.

CIT has worked to concentrate resources on those communities that continue to experience the biggest challenges emerging from our past. It focuses on building the resilience and capacity of people and groups to help to reshape their neighbourhoods. It has been over six years since CIT was established as part of the wider tackling paramilitarism, criminality and organised crime programme, and much has been achieved during that time, with the delivery of 83 projects, which total £23 million. In the past year alone, CIT projects have engaged many thousands of individuals across the eight areas through numerous events, activities and interventions to support them in building community resilience. We have seen at first hand the valuable work that is being delivered and have gathered countless examples of good practice in delivery, some of which we shared with the Committee in our briefing paper.

For young people who are growing up in a post-conflict society, CIT has supported significant and long-term work to help many to make better choices about their future and to be more positively involved in their communities. The CIT youth projects acknowledge the important role that young people can play in our communities and point to alternative pathways by reducing the likelihood of their becoming involved in risk-taking behaviours that are detrimental to their communities, their families and their futures. The projects highlight to them the dangers of becoming victims of exploitation, be it criminal, sexual or monetary.

For those who are experiencing mental health or addiction issues, we have been able to put in place support services in each of the eight areas, where community champions can reach out to those suffering and help them on to a positive pathway to recovery. In some communities, where paramilitary murals and images adorn gable walls and show a strong sense of paramilitary control, through our delivery partners, we have been able to remove numerous contentious murals and re-image them with alternatives that really mean something to the local community. When you take the totality of what has been delivered across the areas and the collaboration between projects and statutory bodies, it is clear that CIT is making a significant difference to many people's lives, and the evidence supports that.

From April 2025, we intend to focus on the key issues that negatively impact on our communities: mental health and addictions; raising the aspirations of young people; exploitation in its many forms, including community safety; and the impact of paramilitarism on the physical landscape. We will also continue to provide support for ex-prisoner integration and restorative practice.

Thank you for the opportunity to present those remarks. I am happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much for that and for sending the paper in advance. I will start with a question about phase 3. I have previously raised with the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and you the fact that, in parts of inner South Belfast, for example, we still see horrendous paramilitary coercive control. That area is crying out for this sort of programme. What is happening with the research for scoping out the areas to be targeted in phase 3?

Mr Irwin: By way of a bit of background: a lot of areas made representations on the prevalence of paramilitarism that we would like to support. The eight areas were selected based on research that was done in late 2016 and subsequently agreed by the Executive. Last year, a review was carried out of the programme, which is run by DOJ, that indicated that there should be research to refresh the CIT areas. That was an action for TEO. We have carried out research in partnership with Queen's University. Subject to funding, we would like to extend CIT reach into those other areas. It would be subject to ministerial approval. Unfortunately, we did not get the funding that we needed to be able to do that — in fact, we will have less funding next year than we have this year — so we are able only to focus on the existing eight areas going into the forthcoming year.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. I read through the best practice projects that you supplied. Obviously, really good work is happening in the different communities. However, what struck me about them all — no disrespect to the individuals or organisations — was that the first one was around youth development, which is the responsibility of the Department of Education; the second was around health and well-being, addiction and mental health, which is for the Department of Health; and the next one was around employability and youth participation. We have the good relations fund and employability programmes. The Public Health Agency provides money. The only one that I thought really ticked the box for me was the Derry/Londonderry cultural identity programme. Is there a drift into areas of responsibility for other Departments?

Mr Irwin: I do not think so, Chair. I think that we would all acknowledge that there is unmet need across all those sectors with regard to educational support, mental health support and employability. The purpose of CIT is to build resilience in communities. It is about targeting vulnerable individuals and doing preventative work. It is also about targeted work where individuals have been affected by paramilitary influence. Proposals that were submitted to us for those projects had to demonstrate that they met the programme's objective, and they have. I think that we would all agree that, if we had more money, we would continue to do more of that work, but there is no doubt that some of the work that we have got into now is in the field of support services, which might be through Health, or whatever.

The reality is that people who are being supported through CIT are often being supported a lot faster than they would be through the standard statutory routes. Take mental health services, for example. The waiting lists are exceptionally long. We have put contracts in place with some providers, which are supported by the Department of Health, whereby we can get individuals seen a lot faster, in a matter of weeks. That shows the unique selling point, if you like, of CIT; its benefit and added value. Of course, we would like to be in a position where we did not have to do any of that, but we are not in that position.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): That is all noble work. I come from the community and voluntary sector, so I certainly admire that, but how is it tackling paramilitary activity and associated criminality? You have a very small budget. Is it being targeted at actually addressing the negative influence of paramilitary organisations?

Mr Irwin: Remember that CIT is only one small programme within the overall Executive programme on paramilitarism and organised crime. We were awarded £2·3 million in this financial year. The overall programme has £16 million. Many other components that are delivered by other Departments are funded through the programme. The criminal justice and policing aspects are all funded through the programme as well. We are just a small part of the overall approach. The recent Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) report from February pretty much sets out clearly that it is not just about a policing and criminal justice response; there needs to be a more holistic response that also looks at deep-rooted socio-economic problems in deprived areas that contribute to the influence of paramilitaries, coercive control, intimidation, and so on, in those areas. Our purpose in CIT is about the community work that is done in those local areas to build that level of resilience. We are an important part of that overall programme, as are the other parts. They all work collectively to try to reduce the impact of paramilitarism.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. I have a final question about that. We have neighbourhood renewal, Urban Villages, the north Belfast strategic good relations programme and capacity-building programmes in councils. We have all of those small programmes — some of them are quite large — that are funded from different pots of money. Is the Executive Office the best delivery body for that? Would it not be better given to councils or existing funding programmes such as those that are delivered by the Department for Communities, as opposed to splitting the pot up, with the potential for duplication, which, let us face it, can happen?

Mr Irwin: Many bodies have looked at that question. There have been reviews and evaluations, not least by the IRC recently. Those have confirmed that the CIT programme has been a model of good practice. There are many benefits from its being housed in TEO. In fact, the IRC recommended that the lessons learned should be picked up by those other Departments. We have delivered many interventions in the health, education and employment spaces, where, over the next two years, which is phase 3, our objective, I suppose, is to try to mainstream those in the other Departments so that we are transferring that learning and to ensure that that good practice is being picked up in the mainstream services.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. We will move on for now.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Thank you for your brief presentation. Youth provision in North Belfast around tackling paramilitarism and all of that has been very effective. I could not tell you how many so-called groups were trying to encourage young people in the New Lodge in 2019 to become involved in an unwanted bonfire. The work of the youth providers afterwards, alongside us, certainly made a difference. I want to put that on the record.

Ricky, there is a difference here, because there are paramilitaries masquerading as whatever, but they are criminal gangs. I have seen a lot of the work that was undertaken by some of the ex-prisoner partners across the constituency and further afield around pathways into employment and conflict resolution. Will you speak about the importance of that work and set out, in your opinion, what more can be done? Following on from that, you said that you put in for more money but got only x amount. I assume that that bid will be live in the event that any slippage comes through monitoring rounds. That is my first question.

Mr Irwin: On the question about money, it is fair to say that CIT has had a chequered past. In 2023-24, we got £3·3 million from DOJ through the programme. This year, which ends on Monday coming, we got only £2·3 million, so we were £1 million down this year. The Ministers could see the benefits of CIT, and we presented the evidence. TEO was able to secure £1·5 million through the June monitoring round this year, which allowed us to extend our contracts up to 31 March 2025.

We have bid into the pot for the forthcoming year, 2025-26, which starts next week. We put in a bid of around £5 million, which represents a significant increase, to reflect the Ministers' desire to expand CIT into other areas. Unfortunately, we got only £2·9 million, which is nearly £1 million down on what we have this year. We are in a position where we are going into a new phase and need to look very critically at what works and what does not work. We have had significant learning over six years, whereby we have evolved the programme, looked at the learning and understood better the nature of paramilitarism and the community response and what works.

We are moving to an issues-based approach for next year, in which we will look at the four issues that I mentioned at the start, Carál, around exploitation, youth, mental health and addictions, and physical landscape. We are doing that on the basis of evidence that we have gathered from communities, from the IRC, from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and from academics and so on.

We plan to do the best that we can with the reduced funding that we have going into this year. However, we will still bid in the monitoring rounds for additional funding. In fact, the Ministers have said to me that they are supportive of that already for June monitoring. As we did this year, I intend to bid in June again for more funds. If we are successful, we will discuss with the Ministers which areas they want us to go into. That could include expanding existing CIT areas. North Belfast is a prime example, where it is mainly Ardoyne and New Lodge, but we know that there is paramilitary activity in Protestant/unionist/loyalist (PUL) areas beyond those that we would like to support as well. There are other parts of Northern Ireland, South Belfast, for example, that we would like to go into if we could. It is all dependent on funding and what we can get during this year.

Phase 3 is supposed to be the final year of the entire Executive programme. Minister Long at DOJ has gone to the Executive in recent months and explained that, before the end of that two-year period, there will be a further review of the programme to look at the lessons learned. That will inform a future approach to tackling paramilitarism. The IRC report is very clear that there needs to be a longer-term approach. When we get to March 2027, it will not be done. We do not know yet what that longer-term approach is. It might be around violence and harm reduction, with a broader harm-reduction-type model. Our objective in TEO is to make sure that the good practice out of CIT is not lost but is built on and is part of that going forward.

Ms Ní Chuilín: You have partially answered my second question, Ricky. Communities in Transition was successful in Ardoyne and in the New Lodge, and it continues to be, but the issue that I have is that there are criminal gangs right across north Belfast. If the programme is to be extended, the people who are working on and administering the funds need to check the bona fides of those whom the funds are allocated to. Secondly, many of the racist attacks that have taken place in south Belfast and parts of north Belfast have had loyalist involvement, according to the police. Therefore, I think that it is crucial that Communities in Transition be extended to loyalist areas to tackle criminal gangs and paramilitaries — those are the same as far as I am concerned. Maybe you cannot answer this now, but what other areas, other than those that you have mentioned, would you be minded to extend the CIT work to if you had the flexibility to do so?

Mr Irwin: Carál, the point about bona fides of organisations is, obviously, critical to any expansion plans. We have strict governance procedures that we go through in awarding contracts, and there are various frameworks and assurances that are sought before money is awarded.

The areas would be subject to a ministerial conversation, and that is very much determined by how much money we get. The more money we have, the more areas we can go into. I do not want to commit to what those areas are right now, of course, because it is a ministerial decision. I have been contacted, as has Carolyn, from other areas and have been asked, "How do we get access to CIT because we hear that it is making a difference?". We always say that we would love to work in those areas but that we just do not have the funding to do it. That remains the position, unfortunately.

Ms Murphy: Thank you, folks, for coming in and giving us an update on CIT. Ricky, I have a quick question. You touched on this when answering Paula's previous question around some of the cross-cutting work that takes place. Can you detail the scope of any joint working or collaboration that is taking place?

Mr Irwin: We are in the space of a number of other Departments and statutory agencies, so we are not working in isolation. We have very good cooperation and collaboration with the Education Authority (EA), DE, the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland, DOJ, the Department of Health, the trusts, the councils and the policing and community safety partnerships. One of the successes of CIT is that, before a proposal is confirmed, we ask the proposer to clarify what the need is and to evidence that. Then we, in the CIT team, check and verify that and do our own scrutiny to make sure that we do not duplicate anything that is going on in that area. It is a process that we intend to carry forward into phase 3.

We have not awarded any contracts for next year yet. It is important to say that. The tenders are currently out. For most of them, there is a three-week tender window. The tender panels will include independent people who maybe have health expertise, restorative practice expertise or whatever it is. We bring in other people to help us assess those applications in order to make sure that we are not duplicating or displacing and are adding value in those areas.

Ms Murphy: I am going to play devil's advocate here: is there room for improvement in CIT?

Mr Irwin: We can always do better — of course. We have evolved quite well. We have started to hone in on the issues. Exploitation has become quite a sharp issue. I am talking about monetary exploitation through illegal money lending; child criminal exploitation; child sexual exploitation, unfortunately; exploitation in relation to drugs; and the abuse of young people. We can always do better in that field. We work with the relevant statutory authorities that lead on exploitation action plans — DOJ and DOH — to make sure that what we do is not harmful in any way in those areas. I will have to think more about the other areas in which we can do better. We are doing our best.

Ms Murphy: You touched on a very valid point, Ricky, about evolving with the times and being proactive rather than reactive when situations occur. More broadly, what are your thoughts on how the work of CIT has shaped overall strategic thinking?

Mr Irwin: We are part of a bigger programme that is led by DOJ, so we have benefited from the expertise and resources that DOJ has brought to the table through the research that it has carried out. For example, in February, there was research on adverse childhood experiences and the impact of trauma on children and young people and how that then makes them more vulnerable to paramilitary influence. We have benefited from having access to that research, and that has helped us to shape our interventions going forward. There has been other research on gender-based violence and paramilitary links.

Given that we are part of that bigger system, we have also been able to feed in our learning from CIT about the benefits of community-based support. Our surveys have shown that, for example, communities have built confidence in trusting the police this year, which is great, and that they think that the influence of paramilitaries in their area has gone down, which is what we want. When we see positive impacts, we feed those back into the overall programme. That is disseminated across all the delivery partners and everyone who is involved, and it feeds into the understanding about what is driving paramilitarism and what is effective for tackling it.

Ms Murphy: Again, it is important that there is that holistic approach, that that information is fed back into the centre and that there is learning for everyone involved. Thank you, Ricky.

Mr Kingston: Thank you, Ricky and Carolyn, for your attendance today and your paper. I think that you were in earlier, Ricky. You have addressed the issue about areas in North Belfast, in particular, that are missing out. It is a sore issue, as you will be aware. It affects areas right along the Shore Road. Is there any way of reaching into those areas at the moment? I know that you have defined areas, but do you have any recognition of areas in need of support or any programmes that they can tap into?

Mr Irwin: Yes. It is not the case that we have spare money, Brian, but we have, in the past, been able to use what is called "an area of influence approach", if there is certain activity going on. I will give Newtownards as an example. Over the last couple of years, there was some activity from South East Antrim UDA. Newtownards is not a CIT area, but we were able to divert some resources from North Down and Bangor, through Northern Ireland Alternatives, to support activity in the Newtownards area. Therefore, we have examples from the past. We have also been able to do it more recently in Dungiven, where we have used that area of influence badge, if you like, to do that. I would love to be able to do it everywhere, but we simply do not have the funding to do it in any meaningful way at this point.

Mr Kingston: Right. It is an issue that my colleagues and I will continue to raise with the Department.

On the funding contracts, is the funding tied up in annual contracts? Are there programmes that are open to groups to apply for smaller pots, or is it all more like an annual contract?

Mr Irwin: It is timely now, because we are about to end one financial year and enter another. As I said, we are in the process of tenders and procurement. CIT work is not a grant programme; it is a procurement programme. We award contracts through tenders. A lot of the tenders are out now. Organisations can register on the eTendersNI system, which is managed by DOF. They submit their bids, which come to us, and we assess them. Those contracts will then be awarded for one year and will be subject to a further year's extension if we get the funding for the second year of phase 3.

There is not a huge amount of scope in-year to support things, but the way that we have it set up is that we will ask those bidders to set out a work plan for the year and to demonstrate how they will meet the objectives of whatever it is — mental health and addictions, youth or whatever. We will score those, but, during the year, if we think that they should be tweaking their delivery in some way or reflecting emerging needs in one area that they did not know about at the time, we will ask them to look at that. We do not have a huge amount of flexibility once the contracts are awarded, but we have some. There is not an ongoing pot of money.

Mr Kingston: OK. My final question is about capacity building and how the approach has changed over time. Is the focus on groups in transition? When you say "communities" in transition, are you talking about former combatants or the wider community? In the past, some people would have asked, "Is this good behaviour money, or is it for the wider community in areas where there is the need for wider capacity building and building up of community structures?". Where would you say that the focus is, and has that focus changed over time?

Mr Irwin: At the start, the focus was on capacity building itself, but it was capacity building for individuals and communities. Phase 2 of CIT moved more into building resilience: building the resilience of the communities and the areas. That also included individuals and providing individuals with opportunities and skills. We have a range of metrics that we measure the projects against. Some are based on individuals, some on groups and some on the wider community. It is a whole spectrum.

We support ex-prisoner integration. It is one of the key regional projects that we support, and, again, that has been very successful. A huge number of ex-prisoner families have come through that process. There is a particular set of challenges that ex-prisoners face, and we have supported activity everywhere on that. We have also done some regional work on restorative practice. That happens across all eight areas and is done through Northern Ireland Alternatives and Community Restorative Justice Ireland. Again, we are looking to build on those as we go into phase 3.

We fund groups that are bona fide voluntary and community organisations and registered charities.

We have a very strict behaviours framework that is based on two key principles: upholding the rule of law and respecting democracy. That means not being involved in criminal activity. If we suspect or hear that anyone has breached the behaviours framework, we will suspend funding. That has happened in the past.

Mr Kingston: OK. Thank you.

Mr Gaston: What I am hearing today has changed my mindset on what the funding is for. Communities in Transition could be a DFC or Department of Health project, but it sits in TEO. I was under the impression that it was more paramilitary-focused, whereas, when you were going through the list of issues covered, you mentioned addictions and different things before you got to anything paramilitary.

I want to pick up on the 18 organisations that had contracts totalling £3·78 million last year. How do you work out what each organisation gets? In the figures that I have from last year, the least awarded to a group was £29,000, and the most awarded to a group was £1·1 million. How do you assess that and assign each group an allocation of money to provide that service?

Mr Irwin: In the current year, which is coming to an end, we have £3·8 million. It was originally £2·3 million, and all the contracts were going to end in December. Those contracts were based on previous tender processes: we had put out invitations to tender and said that we were looking for organisations to deliver. At that stage, it was more about themes, so it might have been "culture and identity" or "personal transition". Those amounts were determined by assessing the tenders at that time. We then got £1·5 million this year, which allowed us to extend those contracts to the end of the financial year, which is Monday coming. Naturally, the amounts awarded to organisations are different because the needs in each of the areas, according to the themes, were different. It was never going to be the same amount to the same organisation or the same amount to different organisations for the same thing.

It will be different again going into the new financial year. We have £2·9 million. The tenders are out at the minute. The bidders will have to demonstrate the need for a particular intervention in a particular area. With the help of other agencies and Departments, we will have to assess that. We will then award the contracts accordingly. I fully expect there to be a broad range of amounts across the delivery partners.

Mr Gaston: I want to go back to the eight geographical areas. Those are based on 2016 data.

Mr Irwin: Yes.

Mr Gaston: At what point does a community in transition become a community transitioned?

Ms McLaughlin: A good question.

Mr Irwin: That is a much bigger question, which the programme itself has been grappling with. The Independent Reporting Commission has said that there needs to be a much longer-term approach to tackling paramilitarism. It will not be solved by March 2027. There will still be a need for a criminal justice and policing response alongside a community-based response that tries to tackle the socio-economic issues, which is part of what CIT is doing.

If you are looking for metrics on how we can say that there is no more paramilitarism, you need to look at the metrics for the entire programme. Among those are no more recruitment of paramilitaries, an end to paramilitary activity and people feeling safe in their communities. They are all constantly being measured, and they are going in the right direction. We can demonstrate, for example, that paramilitary assaults, shootings and attacks have gone down steadily since the programme commenced.

Mr Gaston: In those eight areas?

Mr Irwin: Yes.

Mr Gaston: Meanwhile, however, you have north Antrim, where there has been a significant increase. The paramilitary crime task force is in the area, but no money has gone there. You are still looking at data from 2016.

Mr Irwin: Remember that CIT is limited to just those eight areas, but other parts of the programme for which there is much more money, such as the paramilitary crime task force, are working everywhere. They will be looking at the organised crime gangs and large paramilitary gangs and asking, "Where are they operating?" The other parts are not limited to the eight CIT areas. There is ongoing work elsewhere.

Mr Gaston: At the same time, is there not an expectation that, after the paramilitary crime task force has been in an area, you will then come in with money to try to transition that community, given that you have live data of current activity? I will give you an example: community groups from Ballymoney, Dervock, Mosside and Bushmills came together and met me. They are crying out for money to try to get something for the young people to do, such as youth projects. I thought that CIT would be the perfect programme for them. It is one of the reasons why I pushed to bring you here. However, it appears that that is not even on your radar and is not one of your focuses. You are delving into health and addiction issues that exist all over Northern Ireland. When you are doing that, you are not following the communities that are trying to transition.

Mr Irwin: I disagree, Timothy. We are conscious of the other areas in which there is paramilitary activity. We would really like to try to get into them. If we were to get into new areas, we would work with the community infrastructure and the statutory agencies to understand the need in those areas and design the interventions accordingly. They would be tailored to the specific issues in north Antrim, for example. I simply do not have the money to do that. It has been confirmed that what we do now is making a difference in the overall tackling paramilitarism programme. The young people with whom we work have been impacted on directly by paramilitaries, in that they have been exploited — they may have been used for drug-dealing or whatever — or are at risk of falling into the hands of paramilitaries. Although it might be youth work or work through restorative practice in schools, which sits elsewhere, it is contributing to the overall objective of reducing paramilitarism.

Mr Gaston: How many of those eight areas have transitioned?

Mr Irwin: What is transitioning, though? That is not an answer that I can give.

Mr Gaston: Is it the case that, for as long as the programme runs, those will be the areas that you focus on?

Mr Irwin: That is a question for the overall programme. We are just a small part of it. We have been given funding to continue for a further two years. That is what we will do. We can show evidence that the programme has made things better for and benefited those areas, those community groups and the individuals involved.

Mr Gaston: Have all three phases concentrated on those eight areas?

Mr Irwin: Yes.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): When the deputy First Minister was here last autumn, I asked her whether research had been commissioned for the scoping exercise for phase 3. She said that that was about to happen. Will you speak to that?

Mr Gaston: Does that not indicate that other areas were being looked at?

Mr Irwin: No. Sorry, maybe I was not clear earlier.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): She confirmed that it was coming.

Mr Irwin: We have the research.

Mr Gaston: What does it show for north Antrim?

Mr Irwin: I made the bid for £5 million. We received £2·9 million. The bid was based on expanding into other areas. We did not get the money. Unless I get more money, we cannot expand. It is for Ministers to determine which areas we go into.

Mr Gaston: You mentioned ministerial conversations. Surely there is a priority list, and the Minister does not just say, "Right, I have money" or, "We can get you more money. Go into this area". Surely there is a matrix, based on the work of the paramilitary task force, that ranks areas and says, "This is an area that you have to go to next. You have to focus on it, invest in it and build community groups in it".

Mr Irwin: Yes.

Mr Gaston: I am not getting that.

Mr Irwin: That is there. The research was done by Queen's University. It looked at the methodology that was used in 2016-17. It tried to replicate the methodology as best it could using the range of data sets available from various authorities, including the PSNI; the Housing Executive, which has data on people being intimidated out of their houses; and community restorative justice organisations, which deal with individuals who are under threat, for example. There is a range of data sources. The researchers used all of that data.

Mr Gaston: When is the most recent data from?

Mr Irwin: The past few months. I think that we got it in —.

Mrs Carolyn Mada (The Executive Office): It was September 2024.

Mr Gaston: Will you share that with the Committee?

Mr Irwin: I can certainly take that request back.

Mr Gaston: Finally, if any of the other areas rank more highly than the eight areas that you have prioritised, they still do not get a look in. Is that right?

Mr Irwin: The eight areas are still in the list, but, as I said, expansion could occur within some of them. That is also a consideration. For example, the research shows that the Carrick and Larne area brings in the broader south Antrim area, including Antrim town, parts of Newtownabbey, Rathcoole, Monkstown —.

Mrs Mada: Up as far as Ballyclare.

Mr Irwin: In theory, that would be an expansion of the Carrick and Larne CIT area. Quite a lot of consideration would need to be given and decisions made on how expansion would occur and how much it would cost.

Mr Gaston: You mentioned that you take an "area of influence" approach. My constituents in North Antrim would love to sit down and talk to you about the need there. Would you be willing to do that?

Mr Irwin: I have had conversations with individuals from North Antrim. They have made representations to us. We are very sympathetic, of course, but we do not have the money at this stage. If we can divert resources to other areas, we will aim to do so, but we do not have the resources to do that right now.

Mr Gaston: Will you meet them?

Mr Irwin: I am happy to meet anyone on this issue — absolutely. The reality is that we are down nearly £1 million as we move into the next financial year, so we cannot even continue to do what we have been doing in the existing eight areas this year, never mind introducing new areas.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I am very concerned by what we have just heard. Research commissioned with money from the public purse has demonstrated where the paramilitary structures are and where the need is. Yet, year by year — I appreciate that there is potential for a year's extension — CIT funding continues to be awarded to areas that may be shown by independent academic research not to be the areas that most need it. Is that what you are saying?

Mr Irwin: No, that is not what I am saying.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): If you could give us the report so that we can see that for ourselves, it would be appreciated.

Mr Irwin: I can take that request back, Chair, yes.

Ms McLaughlin: My question follows on from that. I am sitting here with my mouth open. Can you provide data on the difference in our attitudes to paramilitarism in the past six years during which the Communities in Transition programme has run. You are saying that you have data and evidence, but you have not brought it to the Committee. It is very hard to interrogate data that we are not allowed to see. You need to question —.

Mr Irwin: I do not think that anybody asked for it, to be fair.

Ms McLaughlin: It is not about our asking for it. You have come here to talk about a programme that the public purse has been paying for and that has cost millions and millions of pounds in the past six years. We are trying to evaluate that programme's effectiveness and cost-effectiveness and to analyse where it is helping to support transition. We can do that only through evidence. This is not subjective; it requires evidence and data. That is what we are trying to interrogate. Timothy asked this question: when does transition happen? I suppose that that is the most difficult and challenging part of Communities in Transition: when will we know that it has worked? You are saying that we will not know, because it will go on for ever.

Mr Irwin: I am not saying that.

Ms McLaughlin: Well, it has gone on for a long, long time, and none of those eight areas has transitioned yet. You have evidential data that says that those areas are moving in the right direction, but that data has not been shared with us. Can you provide one example of when funding allocated to a CIT project was later revised because the project was not meeting its objectives? Will you then say how you intervened in that case to ensure that the money allocated to that project would be used in an effective and proper manner?

Mr Irwin: An example of where we have changed. Can you think of one, Carolyn?

Mrs Mada: May I talk a bit about the move from a thematic approach to an issues-based approach, Sinéad?

Ms McLaughlin: Yes.

Mrs Mada: Doing that will probably capture what you are getting at. Take the community safety project, for example, which we had in seven of the eight CIT areas. There is a lot of work on general community safety responses in those areas and on building relationships with the PSNI. That has been successful. In the current year — the transition year — we made a deliberate move to look at exploitation: monetary exploitation, child criminal exploitation and sexual exploitation. That shift was initiated by us. We changed from a thematic approach to an issues-based approach in order to focus our budget in a more targeted way. We have seen how that has really worked and how we are getting better results.

We talk about evidence that things are working. Come 31 March, we will have a full bank of data from this year on entry and exit surveys, and that will show attitudinal change across the programme. Rather than refer to one specific thing that CIT has done, that has been our move this year. From health and well-being, we have moved to mental health and addictions. We are moving from culture and identity to the impact of paramilitarism on the physical landscape. As our budget has reduced, we have squeezed our programmes to make them more focused on the core issues that are, we know, the big issues in the community. That has been our move.

Ms McLaughlin: Are they being augmented by other areas of funding? In my constituency, for example, CIT funding and Department of Health funding are going towards trying to reverse health inequalities. There are so many health inequalities in the Foyle constituency, and that funding is very much required, but does it transition communities out of paramilitarism? I am not quite sure. If CIT is not about transitioning from paramilitarism, is it time for the name of the funding pot to be changed? It is about building resilient communities and where that takes us. I quite often hear constituents saying, "Transition? We are 27 years after the peace agreement". Those people were not even born or were not involved in paramilitary activity during the Troubles, as we call that time. They have been caught up in criminal and antisocial behaviour in their communities. A lot of that comes from living in poverty and living without focus because of the circumstances in which they find themselves, so there is a frustration.

Can you understand? There is a frustration, and there are some really big misconceptions about Communities in Transition, not about the good work that has taken place in communities by communities but about the fact that people see "paramilitary activity" as just criminal gangs operating against their communities. There is a deep frustration with that, and that is what we are hearing.

CIT is in eight areas, but that activity happens everywhere. Money from the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and others is trying to tackle these issues. They are not dissimilar, but, in many ways, communities are working in silos: that is how the funding makes them work, because they are answering to various Departments. They are equally frustrated about trying to deal with health issues, mental health or blah blah blah, yet they are getting a wee pocket here and a wee pocket there and constantly trying to chase the last pound.

I spoke to people from the Old Library Trust last week when I was holding a constituency clinic in Creggan, and they are desperately waiting for funding, because it is about people's jobs. That is not a criticism of the work but of how we structure all of this and the responsibility for it.

Mr Irwin: I agree with all of that. The question is this: how do we effect systemic change so that we are changing the wider system. The IRC report picked up on that and stated that other Departments' strategies, be it RAISE in Education or neighbourhood renewal, need to be mindful of the need to tackle paramilitarism as well. It cannot be just about TEO and DOJ and the money that we have. It needs to be about the anti-poverty strategy and lots of other different things coming together. We do our best to influence other Departments in what they are doing on the basis of what we think works. There is a much bigger question around systemic change.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. I am really conscious of time. We are probably an hour behind.

Ms Sugden: I will probably build on what everybody else has said. I was the Minister in charge when we brought in the paramilitaries action plan, and I have always maintained that it was never going to be successful in the absence of an effective Programme for Government that looked at all the areas that you highlighted in relation to socio-economic issues. Ultimately, that is what this is: a crisis in how we deal with our vulnerable communities. They are vulnerable because of the failures of government to address socio-economic issues. How, then, do we do that? How does the Executive Office get that message across? It is what Sinéad is saying; it is what everyone is saying, to be honest. Even in the current Programme for Government, as an over-arching look in each Department, are we being specific about that?

Mr Irwin: There are two or three references to reaffirm the commitment to tackle paramilitarism in the current Programme for Government. There is also a commitment to refresh the Communities in Transition programme, which is at phase 3. There are references in there, yes.

Ms Sugden: Yes, but those are references, and that document does not really go into the specifics of what you have talked about: recognising that this is the responsibility of Communities and Health and that it is even the responsibility of DFI Roads, because, if you go into an area in north Belfast, you will see a peace wall being used as currency for the fact that there are potholes. That is one of the biggest issues in relation to this. How do we encourage the communities to recognise what is happening? Ultimately, individuals are exploiting communities' vulnerabilities because the Government are not providing all the services that they should provide. Those individuals give confidence back to those communities, I suppose. That is the big issue here. That is why they are turning to paramilitaries.

We also have to recognise that paramilitaries are not guys in balaclavas; they are neighbours, friends and family members. How do we break that connection so that the communities themselves are not so dependent on those individuals? It starts with the Government. Certainly, if there is a message that I can send back to our First Minister, deputy First Minister and the wider Executive, it is this: recognise that it is the failure to give communities what they are entitled to that is leading them to this alternative. How do we help the communities to recognise that? It is coercive control, but they do not see it.

Mr Irwin: Yes, the programme itself has grappled with that question, and the Ending the Harm campaign is designed to raise awareness, of course. We have all seen the billboard adverts that outline the level of coercive control that there can be, the different forms that it takes and the fact that it can involve your neighbours. The campaign also highlights the fact that paramilitarism has shifted significantly over the years and moved more into the likes of illegal moneylending. A lot of work has been done to try to raise awareness of those issues. A lot more could be done. We need to be a lot more joined up across government and be mindful that we need to look through the lens of paramilitarism when looking at our strategies on community safety or raising educational aspiration, for example. How will they also tackle paramilitarism? We need to reduce the space in which paramilitaries can operate and try to eliminate that.

Ms Sugden: The point is around helping the communities to recognise that. I appreciate that you say that some people say that they are feeling safer.

Mr Irwin: Yes.

Ms Sugden: I would challenge that a bit: they say that because they feel that they are being kept safe, but not by government or statutory agencies. They feel that they are safe because of people in their communities, so how do we help them to recognise that coercive control — that manipulation? If we are to call it out for what it is, we have to say that it is financial exploitation and child sexual exploitation, which is quite horrific. If people realised what was going on in their communities, they might have a different view on those things, including drugs.

Mr Irwin: A lot of it is drugs-driven, yes. The messages in the Ending the Harm campaign, for example, around children being abused by paramilitaries have been fairly hard hitting. The messages need to continue to be hard hitting, and, alongside that, we need to work with all the statutory agencies and community groups to raise that awareness, because, at the end of the day, a lot of those harms are hidden. We probably need more research on the issue. It has been helpful that we have had research on adverse childhood experiences and the impact that trauma has on the vulnerability of children and young people growing up. There is also the gender-based aspect. We should continue trying to understand what the problem is, which then helps us to design the intervention. That is why this is a longer-term thing and much more of a societal issue. It is not just a TEO and DOJ issue; it is for all of us.

Ms Sugden: OK. My last point —.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Quickly.

Ms Sugden: I express similar frustrations to those of Timothy and other members about not going outside the eight areas. I appreciate your limitations in that respect. Whilst you are looking at it almost from a macro perspective to get 80% of the picture, you are not getting 20% of it — these figures are entirely made up — and not getting the picture in those areas stops there being confidence in the issue being tackled. The Executive need to find a way of looking at all areas, rather than trying to just tick off as much they can in statistical terms. I know that you are not necessarily doing that, and I appreciate that you are constrained. However, what Timothy said about North Antrim, some of which may come into my constituency, is serious. The Executive have to recognise that we cannot just tick off seven areas and say, "That's enough: we're done". As socio-economic issues get worse, this will get worse. That is just a takeaway on those frustrations.

Mr Irwin: OK. Thank you for that.

Mr Harvey: Ricky, in talking about the £23 million that has been spent over six years, you mentioned long-term and short-term work. What give the best value or create the best outcomes: long-term or short-term projects?

Mr Irwin: That is an interesting question, Harry. It depends on the intervention. When an individual has not been able to access mental health support that is essential because, for example, they may be suicidal or under threat from paramilitaries and we are able to support organisations to support that individual and remove that threat, the short-term benefits for that person are immeasurable. In the longer term, it is about increased confidence in policing and the bigger benefits that I have talked about: feeling safe in your community and feeling that paramilitaries do not have influence in your area. Those bigger benefits are equally important, in that they reflect the population change that we are trying to achieve. It is a difficult question, but short-term and long-term projects are both important. It depends on the nature of the intervention.

Mr Harvey: That is OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much, Ricky and Carolyn; we really appreciate that.

Mr Irwin: No problem.