Audience Council
Paddy Richardson,
Prior to his employment in 2000 with Business In the Community Ireland, Paddy spent almost 20 years as a Services manager for people with mental and physical disabilities, in three Health Board areas.
He is currently responsible for 5 Employment programmes; the Linkage programme for ex-offenders, The Gate Service and the Mentoring Service for prisoners, the Ready For Work programme for homeless persons, and the EPIC programme for Immigrants. The objective is to help participants become economically independent by helping them access training, education and employment opportunities appropriate to their needs.
As an elected Independent representative, he was, for nine years an executive member of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland where he had a particular role in the reform of local government and finance and a wide range of social and economic issues relating to marginalised people. He was a member of the Expert Panel on the cross-border project 'PROTECT North & South', between the Probation Board in Northern Ireland and the Probation Service in the Republic of Ireland, which was set up under the Good Friday Agreement.
Currently, he is a member of the European Offenders Employment Forum and a Director and Treasurer of the Irish Penal Reform Trust. Paddy holds an MBA from Oxford Brookes University, a Diploma In Management Studies, and a Diploma in Social Policy & Criminology from the Open University. Paddy is an exponent of alternatives to custody and the expungement of sentences in certain categories of offences.