Mr. Martin Rogan:

Mental health associations are volunteer driven and raise funds in their local communities. They spend those funds within their communities promoting positive mental health and supporting people with significant health needs. Right across our network people have discovered they have had to cancel different events, sometimes very low-key events. It is really important because communities really want to support the activities of local mental health volunteers. People have been very generous, particularly online, and Mental Health Ireland is very careful to ensure our own fundraising does not impinge on our local volunteer network. We opened up an application scheme and invited groups to come forward. Some found they were doing fine and could manage. We also had a second round of funding. In July we have allocated more than €90,000 in a series of grants to ensure that services can continue and improve in their adherence to social distancing. I was on a Zoom call yesterday evening with some colleagues working in the Rathmines area. A simple device such as adding an awning creates additional outdoor space which means that people who could become very isolated, perhaps living in bedsits etc. in inner city Dublin and in the Rathmines area, can still avail of the service, albeit in a measured and socially distanced way.

Mental Health Ireland's strategy is called empowerment from ideas to action. We are asking how we can give pragmatic expression to public policy and ensure that people do not in any way feel isolated or left behind. We have had to reach out to try to bridge that gap to some extent. It is something we have not done before, but because of the generosity of people donating online, we have been in a position to do that on this occasion.

It is really difficult to quantify the degree of loss on that. Each association has submitted its accounts and I can return to the Deputy with that detail.