Ms Deirdre Mortell:

On the first question, we are technically closing at the end of this year, but we actually closed our grant-making arrangement in December 2012. Our funds are now closed and fully committed. The straight answer is "No".

On the question on the link between social entrepreneurs and growth capital, I will answer it in part. It will be answered fully in the presentations that follow my contribution. We are covering different matters. Social entrepreneurs are usually start-up or early stage entrepreneurs. Mr. Paul O'Hara's and Mr. Seán Coughlan's organisations are working directly with social entrepreneurs. One Foundation is not. When social entrepreneurs emerged from support from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland or Ashoka, or both, they might have come to One Foundation for growth capital. They would have tested their ideas and shown they could work, and they would have built some networks, etc. On doing so, they say their initiative is working in Dublin and ask how it can be grown. This process involves One Foundation. It is not all black and white and there is some passing around. The idea is that social entrepreneurs who have shown that their initiatives can work, have value for Ireland and can be cost-effective in some way and at some level but probably on a relatively small scale can avail of a bigger growth capital fund for the larger amount of money and wider supports that they require, perhaps on a national or international basis. One Foundation would have provided that part, but there would already have been something to work with.

BeLonG To was about five years old. It had 100 young people coming to it every week in Dublin and this had been the case for four years. It had four or five staff when we met the representatives. We asked whether the initiative worked and how we could know this. We also asked about the evidence base. We asked whether the evidence base needed to be built a little more before we could think about growing the model and asked the right way to grow the model. There is not a single way to take an initiative to a national level; there are three or four options. In the business planning service we offered we could have examined the various growth models. Should one run BeLonG To in every county, work with the mainstream e-services and just train those concerned? Should one licence one's model? There are many ways in which this could be done. We would have examined all the options to determine what would work in the context of a given organisation, bearing in mind its skill set. We would then have formulated a relevant cost and financial model. This view will emerge in the other presentations also.