Mr. Seamus Mulconry:

I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to present to it. The origins of this meeting go back to work that was done by the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising, which many members will know is chaired by Mr. Frank Flannery. The forum's strategic objective is to increase the amount of private sector investment from the current estimated level of €500 million to €800 million by 2016. The sector is an indispensable partner to Government in the delivery of a wide range of services. It is also an important economic actor in its own right. The not-for-profit sector employs in excess of 100,000 people in Ireland, more than pharma and IT combined. A subset, social enterprise, employs between 25,000 and 33,000 people. If we were able to increase the numbers employed in social enterprise to the European average, that figure would be approximately 65,000. There is significant job creation potential. Traditionally, this sector as a whole has not been viewed as a source of job creation or economic activity. For this reason, we wish to speak to the committee.

I will introduce my two colleagues. Mr. Coughlan will brief the committee on social enterprise, its potential and some of the steps that are necessary to deliver on same. Mr. Ó Corrbuí will discuss shared services. Dublin is the shared services capital of Europe. We provide shared services to a large number of entities across the EU, for example, back office operations, IT, etc. There is significant potential to adopt this approach in the not-for-profit sector, which would have a two-fold effect - it would create jobs in that sector while reducing costs and increasing efficiencies.