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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 10 Dec 2002

Vol. 559 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - White Paper on Supporting Voluntary Activity.

Another election promise has been broken. In September 2000 the Government published a White Paper entitled Supporting Voluntary Activity, which was the framework for developing the relationship between the State and the community and voluntary sector. A group was set up comprising six representatives from the community and voluntary sector and six from the State. Advertisements in relation to funding appeared in the newspapers. The group agreed on how the funding would be spent. Last year, because of the approaching election, the Government decided not to bother allocating that money until the new year. In November of this year we were told that no money would be allocated, that this funding would have to be re-advertised and that the Minister would set new criteria. I want answers to a number of questions.

First, I want to know who will decide the new criteria. Has the Minister accepted the White Paper on the voluntary sector? We now live in a society where people are busy. We should be encouraging, thanking and supporting anybody who is prepared to volunteer. Everybody is so busy in life that it is not easy to persuade people to become involved in the voluntary sector. We should be encouraging them. Is the Minister supportive of the White Paper? Does he want this to work or does he want to take total control of where funding goes? There are many worthy voluntary organisations that have applied to the Department for funding. To date they have received no notification from the Department as to whether they need to reapply, what the new criteria are, when grant aid will be allocated and how much support the State will give them. That is very unfair and the Minister should deal with it as quickly as possible. He should reassure these people that he wants to work with and support them, that he is thankful for their help and that they are there in a voluntary capacity, because the days when people volunteered are gone. It is very difficult, in any sector of society, whether in the city or rural areas, to get people involved in the community sector. The Minister should be encouraging, helping and supporting people.

What are the Government's priorities in relation to the White Paper? What is the time scale for it to be implemented? When will the grant aid be given? Will it be advertised again? Will groups who have applied have to reapply or will their original application be considered? What are the criteria and who decides them? Has the Minister met the group in question comprising six community representatives and six representatives of the State? If not, when will he meet them and work this out?

The Minister should be out there, as I know he is. He is somebody who talks my language. He is for the community, for rural Ireland and cities in Ireland. He wants the community to become involved in schemes. This is an opportunity for the Minister to put his money where his mouth is. He has set up a committee which has been approved by Government. The programme for Government and the partnership in relation to the national wage agreement have agreed that this sector should be represented at the State table. These people work in a voluntary capacity. I am asking the Minister to take them out of their misery, tell them what is happening, work with them. We are glad to have them. I wish there were more people prepared to work in the voluntary sector.

We must know the extent of the Minister's commitment to this. Does he want it to work or not? Has he his own agenda that he wants to implement? These people feel left out. I ask the Minister to clarify this and to meet these people immediately. A sum of €7 million was put in place but none of it has been spent yet. I want to know what happened to that money last year. Has it gone back into the Exchequer, will it be carried forward next year, or will it be allocated between now and the end of the year? I hope the Minister will allocate it because there are many voluntary groups that have applied who need the money, support and help.

I would like the Minister, as somebody who supports rural development, to support the voluntary sector. It is very difficult now to get anybody to do anything in a voluntary capacity. We should support, help and work with them.

I apologise. I had been informed that this question would be fourth. When I saw the Deputy on the monitor I ran, not from the Deputy, but to the Chamber.

I have an official reply here. The Deputy's contribution indicates that he is already aware of what is contained in part of it, that he is aware of the publication of the White Paper and of the fact that the Implementation Advisory Group (IAG) was set up. I will not, therefore, read the part of the reply that refers to the number of people on the group and so on because that is not what the Deputy wants to hear.

The group has met on 15 occasions since its establishment in July 2001. Much of the detailed work of the group has been carried out by sub-committees formed to examine specific issues and report to the main group. Some of the key areas of work to date include the federations and networks scheme. The Deputy has raised the question of this scheme on the Adjournment. The idea of the scheme is to provide funding to support the role of federations and networks in the community and voluntary sector. It is one of a number of measures introduced by the White Paper with the objective of supporting and developing the sector.

The scheme attracted 152 applications which required detailed examination and assessment which was carried out with the assistance of the White Paper's implementation and advisory group. The group, which consists of both statutory and voluntary representatives, is tasked with advising on the implementation of the recommendations contained in the White Paper.

At the end of the process I was given a detailed dossier, which I read while on holiday. That shows how dedicated I am to my job. Having read it, I felt there were some very serious legal issues arising from the methodology employed. On my return I asked for legal advice on this. It was felt that there were issues relating to how the whole process had been carried forward that could give rise to a legal challenge in the future. These were real and serious issues. In order to ensure that there would be no legal challenge once a decision was made, and that nobody would feel they had got less than proper and full treatment, it was considered necessary to re-advertise the scheme and to seek fresh applications.

The scheme will, therefore, be re-advertised at the earliest possible date. Criteria for the scheme will be established by my Department in consultation with the voluntary sector representatives on the IAG. There are some issues, such as definition of networks and federations and organisations. These are quite tricky to codify in a fair and equal manner. The advice from the IAG will be important. However, we must ensure that, once we decide the criteria, we stick with them until the end of the process. We cannot change the goal posts after advertising. That is my only concern about this issue.

I also want to make sure that the criteria we lay down will be seen as inclusive, fair and objective. The Minister has a legitimate role in deciding the criteria, having taken advice. The process should proceed automatically after that. That is what I will seek to do. Any allegation that either I or the Minister of State would personally pick one group or another is the opposite to what we want to do. We want to establish the criteria and whatever is published is how it will work, subject to advice from the group.

We will be funding the scheme in 2003. I have set aside funding for the scheme but it will be at a reduced level, not at the level outlined in the White Paper. I regret the delay in arriving at a decision. The funding was to have been allocated over three years and the Deputy is aware that some of that funding was not spent this year.

We are making new funding available and we intend to continue to fund this scheme during the period in which it will run. The situation is slightly different in relation to the second parallel scheme, dealing with training and support. There was a strong response to the advertisement for training and support schemes, with 540 applications received. It has been decided that, in order to expedite the assessment of such a large number of applications and in the interests of achieving a demonstrably independent assessment process, consultants should be recruited to make an assessment of all applications received and to make recommendations to me at the earliest possible date. My Department is making the necessary arrangements for the recruitment of suitable consultants for the completion of this task and funding for the scheme will be made available in 2003 at a reduced rate.

We have decided to defer until after 2003 the funding for a programme of research, as recom mended in the White Paper. A good deal of research into these matters is ongoing in the universities in any event. Studies are also taking place into the multiplicity of sources of State funding and the production of a funding manual for the voluntary sector is being considered.

As somebody who is still involved in a small way in the voluntary sector and who lives in a small community, as well as in my role as a Minister and a public representative, one of the most significant problems I encounter is the multiplicity of options for funding, all of which comes from the State in the first instance. This causes a significant amount of unnecessary work for local communities. The Deputy can rest assured that everything I bring to the voluntary sector is informed by my 23 years as a worker in the voluntary sector, during all of my working career. I also worked at night in the sector in a voluntary capacity. I always ask myself how I would feel about certain measures if I was still working in the system. I would like to see greater simplicity and a much better focus on the schemes available.

The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 December 2002.

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