Dr. Catherine Day:

Perhaps I will pick up on that. The underlying problems have to be solved. The risk of being accused of reckless trading will exist as long as there are deficits. We suggested that it would probably be financially worthwhile and useful for the State to fund some kind of small support office for the smaller voluntary organisations to provide training for board members and, perhaps, to support shared services. Insurance is another example of that. Rather than having to deal with multiple individual problems, we could provide a centrally funded service that would help to take some of the burden of administration and personal burden away from the organisations and help to get a more streamlined delivery coming through. That would be one inexpensive but useful way of supporting the boards.

Many people made the point to us that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people to go on boards because of that problem, which shows that they take their duties responsibly and seriously. To solve that problem, we will have to take away the underlying problem, which is that there is a risk of reckless trading because the deficits are mushrooming. They are not being taken into account or even being talked about. Then it will come out some day that there is a funding gap and people will ask how that happened but the warning signs have been there for a long time. It is not a new or sudden problem.