Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the committee members as I feel as passionately about community as they do. As to allocations, this year alone our Department is spending €133 million on community, which is very important. The Department and I take the SICAP and all of the community programmes very seriously. There is no such thing as rural or urban poverty. It is everywhere. I have a role which I do not view as rural. My job in the community sector is to look at both urban and rural. The SICAP programme, in particular, is one of the programmes announced last year and is a five-year programme.

Some €190 million has been allocated to that programme. A review of the programme was carried out, not by myself or by the Department but by outside experts. The review made 15 recommendations and we accepted them all. We made it more flexible and gave groups more power to deal with problems. One of the recommendations concerned one-to-one services. There was a lot of group work involved in these programmes, but there is a need for one-to-one services where people are applying for jobs or learning to read and write.

I went to Limerick recently and saw the SICAP programme working at its best. It gives a lift to communities and self-respect to people who get a second, or indeed a third, opportunity. They deserve these opportunities because they are in disadvantaged areas. I was in the middle of Dublin city last year with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and I will be there again tomorrow to provide further funding for disadvantaged communities. It is important that we continue with these programmes. The 2018 target is to assess 27,452 individuals and 2,219 community groups. It is important that we support these groups. They are working at the coalface, dealing with communities and with all sorts of problems. I try to support those groups in any way I can. The Deputy is correct. Over the years these programmes were scaled back because of the challenges the country and the economy faced.

I am committed to SICAP. It is one of the flagship programmes of my Department. It is evaluated regularly, and I will be working with communities and with people such as the Deputy. I want to support them in any way I can. I have always said that social enterprises are one thing, but community work involves the targeting of the most disadvantaged sectors in society. The people working on this know what is happening on the ground and what supports are needed. I have made SICAP more flexible to give the people working on these programmes the opportunity to deal with the problems. One of the problems with programmes such as this is that sometimes the rules and regulations that have to be followed are too rigid, and I am offering a bit of leeway on that in response to recommendations made in the report.

The community enhancement programme, including the community facilities programme and the RAPID programme, did not receive big funding, but I was able to deploy some money towards it from savings I had. The community enhancement programme replaces the community facilities and the RAPID programme. I provided the funding to the local community development committees, LCDCs, which comprise elected representatives, community groups, business groups and local councils. Providing the funding at that level will make sure that money is targeted at areas where it is needed. I will ask my Department to monitor this. We are using the Pobal HP deprivation index guidelines to help decide on the allocation of moneys. A value for money review of the RAPID programme was carried out, and I absorbed the findings of that report. I hope that by providing the funding directly to the LCDCs, we can target the areas where funding is most needed. This year the funding is €4.5 million, consisting of €2.5 million from RAPID and €2 million from the community scheme. I also added a further €8 million into it, meaning that total funding this year is more than €12 million. Local authorities approached me and told me that they were having difficulties with the funding I provided. I want the programme to support their needs. It is not all about rural schemes. These community schemes are very important to me.

Deputy Ó Cuív has raised the issue of the community services programme, CSP, and the minimum wage. The CSP review will look at the level of support provided to organisations as well as the need and feasibility of aligning the CSP supports with the minimum wage. Pobal has a hardship fund, and I have asked it to look at every single group throughout the country. Where it finds a need I have asked that funding be provided to these groups. It is an issue I have to face going down the line. If I link these groups to the minimum wage, it will cost another €4 million. We are making a contribution here. It costs €21,000 for a manager, and we pay the staff as well. It was never intended that the Department would provide an employment grant but rather a contribution. The Deputy has made his point and I have made mine. Some of these groups are social enterprises that can easily match the top-up we are providing. I am asking Pobal to look at this issue. Where the groups are able to pay the minimum wage and do not require the top-up, I must provide that funding to other groups that do not have the means to raise funding. I am carrying out a review of that, and hope to have it completed by 2019. It has to be done.

Due to the current regulations, some of these community groups have difficulty surviving. I do not want to see that difficulty happening. I want community groups that are dealing with problems the Government, the councils and the health service are not dealing with. If we did not have these groups doing the work they do, we would have a problem. My review is considering whether two different categories can be created. If any member of this committee has any advice or any submissions in this regard, I would appreciate his or her contribution. I want services maintained and retained in communities where they are needed and where the State is not providing them. I have continued to support funding, and I hope we can, in the next few weeks, top up some of the groups that need more funding.