Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree that providing money quickly through LCDCs is the best way to handle small grants. That is why we are doing this the way we are.

Pobal manages a range of funding programmes. If there are particular programmes where accessing funding is a problem, we would like to know. We could bring that information to Pobal. It has a range of approximately 20 funding programmes of various kinds. Pobal would be interested in knowing, as would I, if there are issues with getting small grants out efficiently.

Regarding the percentage of the Dormant Accounts Fund that is used, the quick answer is I do not know. That is key information to find out. The National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, is clearly risk-averse, but it is worth delving into this and shedding more light on how the money is used.