Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 September 2022
129. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will provide community organisations with funding for the cost of compliance and streamline regulatory and funding-related compliance requirements; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45135/22]
View answerIn 2019, my Department published Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities - A five year strategy to support the community and voluntary sector in Ireland 2019-2024. The strategy reaffirms the Government’s commitment to supporting the sector and addressing some of the burdens faced by service providers, whilst also recognising the reality of finite resources and the need to ensure that available resources are focused on providing effective services.
The strategy commits, inter alia, to developing appropriate compliance and monitoring arrangements and to supporting capacity in the community development, local development and the broader community and voluntary sector to meet them. Actions include:
- reviewing the appropriateness of regulatory compliance requirements;
- developing and implementing a strategy to reduce, streamline and standardise all public-funded programme and regulatory monitoring, reporting and compliance requirements, where appropriate, and
- resourcing and supporting organisations to fulfil compliance requirements.
The implementation of the strategy is being overseen by the Cross-Sectoral Group on Local and Community Development. A key role for this group is to support my Department in the prioritisation of objectives and actions to be progressed within the framework of annual workplans.
I acknowledge the concerns of the sector in relation to this issue and I am committed to working with all stakeholders to address the challenges involved.
