Ms Jacinta Stewart:

We had experience as City of Dublin VEC in dealing with grants. We had an IT infrastructure and a HR infrastructure in place. We had a capacity and capability in the assessment of grants and we had been involved in a number of pilot programmes, one an online programme, putting grants online. We had developed our own assessment system. We had developed an electronic funds transfer system as well. Up to that point, many grants were paid manually and by cheque. We also had ideas about how we would like to develop the system and the kind of things we would like to put in place. One of the huge benefits that is beginning to become very clear now is that if one is interested in equity of access and equality, there is a huge amount of information coming through in grants - who gets grants, where they get them, what kind of grants they are getting and what are the changes in grants. We were really interested and enthusiastic from that point of view.