Mr. Barry Sheridan:

I thank members for their questions. Members asked about our funding, where the funding comes from and the challenges we face in that regard. It is challenging. Ours is still a young organisation at only five years old and we have come far over the last five years. Our rate of growth is phenomenal and there is no sign of it slowing at present. It means our organisation must grow with that and change from one that was trying to support 50 sheds to one that is now supporting 350, with one and a half new sheds being established each week. That brings challenges and places us in a new position.

Thankfully, there is a commitment in the programme for Government to support men's sheds so we are negotiating that at present. Hopefully, that will assist us in securing our medium-term future in terms of being able to provide our basic level of services across the board. On top of that, there is what we can do to fulfil our potential. There is so much we can do because we have a huge network of men visiting the sheds every week and many health organisations, such as the HSE and other bodies, are trying to reach those men. With the right type of resources we have a prime opportunity to make a huge impact in terms of their skills, their health and reducing social isolation. It is a constant battle but in the progress we have made over the past five years we have proven how far we can go with very little. There is scope for us, hopefully, to receive the type of supports to make the impact we can make. That is the challenge. It is an ongoing challenge and we hope we will be in a better position in the next few months to do a little more for the guys on the ground.

The Senator asked about the independence of each shed. Each shed is autonomous. They are self funding and self financing at local level. We provide them with the tools to set it up and how to govern it. We take away all the pieces that the guys did not join a shed for - they did not join a shed to run a committee or to figure out how to organise themselves. We give them the blueprint for that and help them through that process, so when guys visit their shed they can spend time enjoying the activities they wish to enjoy and get involved in the community activities in which they wish to get involved. We often talk about the impact of sheds for men, but it is far broader than that. Each of the men has family, relatives or neighbours and it has a huge impact on them. Every day men tell us, "I now have a purpose to get out of bed". That is the reality. It is stronger than that in some cases, in that they have a purpose to be alive. That is what is happening in rural Ireland.

We can play a small part in assisting those individuals, their families and their communities. The communities are benefiting because the first projects the sheds will try to get involved in are community projects, such as helping with the Tidy Towns competition and whether they can build something for the local community. Many of them are building benches and donating them to primary schools. It is a really nice connection to give back to the primary schools, so the schools, teachers and children's parents are connected to a shed. That is the basis for it. There is a broader societal question we must ask ourselves in terms of what type of society we wish to live in. Sometimes we lose sight of what community is about and the role it can play. It is a tricky question but how does one put a value on social capital? The amount of social capital generated by projects such as ours and those of the ICA does a huge amount for Irish society. We are not harnessing the full potential within that in terms of developing rural Ireland into the future.

The Senator mentioned the shed in Boyle. In the past 12 months our organisation has introduced regional cluster meetings. This goes back to the question of whether ours is a bottom-up organisation. It is very much a grassroots organisation. Every shed is based on the needs of men in a community. We often get inquiries from a local authority, perhaps, saying it wishes to set up a shed and asking us for assistance on how to do it. We ask them where the men are and the authority might say it does not have them yet. That is not how it works. It comes from the men. Without the men all that is there is a shed, which is no use.

In terms of local linkages, it is very important as we grow that each shed has a local network in its locality. We are trying to establish a local network in every county, where sheds would meet regularly. They could meet on a monthly or bi-monthly basis and share stories, such as what difficulties they have, how they overcome the difficulties, what projects they are working on, whether there is something they can do together and sheds visiting other sheds. It is broadening their social outlook. Part of that is work that we need to do with local agencies. Thankfully, the local development companies, Leader programmes and partnerships, the education and training boards, ETBs, and the local authorities are becoming increasingly involved at local level, because they see the impact and success the sheds are having. What is happening now is that a guy might go to a shed and say, "I would love to learn how to do bee keeping. I have no idea how to do it but where will I learn?". They could go to the ETB where there might be a course. They might wish to learn how to use computers or to do art classes. It is whatever the guys decide themselves. That inter-connectivity-----