Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is very hard to see in some places. Parts of the country can be very different. One could be in an area in the city centre that is disadvantaged. There are areas like mine which are the commuter belt. There are communities that did not exist 15 years ago in which people do not know their next-door neighbours and where it can be very difficult to pull together. It is very difficult, for example, for people to do their fundraising in an area like that in order to deliver facilities and services that could be delivered by grant aid or by matching grant aid. It seems to me that the advantaged are advantaged in being able to come up with the matching funding. There is not an overview of where the gaps are. One could pick anything. Let us consider swimming pools for example, or something that is not this Departments. One could say that there are a certain number of pools in one place and then in another area there is a ten mile journey or drive between them. One could knock out something like that and then we could see where the gap is and what needs to be funded. That does not require a community that has all of the advantages of coming up with matching funding and of being resource well-off in terms of the ability to make grant applications and so on. It seems to me that there is a huge gap in knowledge. One could see this with the profile of the same organisation that is able to make grant applications repeatedly. There could, for example, be geographic difficulties because of that. I am not sure it is a great use of public funds by not having an overview and by being so silo-based between the various Departments. It looks to me like there is a huge gap there.