Mr. Ivan Cooper:

I will discuss Ms Garvey's points. As the committee will have observed, much remarkable work was done during the crisis by community and voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises to redesign services. When people stayed at home, the community and voluntary sector rose to the challenge. At the same time, it was experiencing an unprecedented income collapse. I will focus on this point for a moment.

Covid has had a profound effect on many community and voluntary organisations, but the impact has been mixed. Our latest member survey reveals that half of our members - there are 1,900 or so members in the Wheel - have seen their overall incomes fall during the crisis, but a quarter have seen their incomes rise and another quarter have experienced no change. Two thirds of organisations have seen their fundraised income drop; the decrease was more than a half for one third. Fundraising charities have been significantly impacted. Of those that receive statutory funding, which number more than half of all organisations and two thirds of our membership, one third have seen their statutory incomes increase and only 7% have reported a drop in such income. It is a mixed experience.

I draw the committee's attention to four categories of organisation that we have identified. First, traditional face-to-face fundraising charities, for example, on-street collections, have generally seen their incomes fall significantly. Second, the fundraising incomes of innovative fundraising charities, for example, those that use online, direct debit, social media and other such methods, have been stable or, as in some cases, have increased. Third, the incomes of Government-funded organisations, which are understood to be public service providers, have generally been stable. Fourth, social enterprise organisations that earn an income have had widely varying experiences. Some have had to stop delivering the services and supports they are concerned with and have seen their incomes collapse. Others have seen their incomes increase because their services have been more in demand. As such, it is difficult to come to general conclusions on the sector's needs re funding.

There is a need for significant extra research and resources to track the impact of the income loss across a differentiated sector. This is important. Recently, the Charities Regulator published research on the impact of the Covid crisis on charities. The most significant finding in its report, which was only released last week, is that more than 70% of organisations that partook in its study reported that the main challenge was maintaining income. This is a major issue in the context of the forthcoming budget.

As Ms Garvey indicated, the €35 million stability fund that was secured last year and delivered by the Department of Rural and Community Development was most welcome. It was enhanced by an additional €10 million last year plus €10 million this year, bringing it to a total of €55 million. That is a significant contribution. According to our most recent information, more than 98% of the 600 organisations that applied for and secured funding through this measure have succeeded in continuing to qualify for and hold onto those funds. This indicates the extent of the income drop that was experienced by organisations, given that, in order to qualify, they had to show that they were going to have a 25% income drop over the course of last year. We now need to conduct further research to identify precisely which of the categories of organisation that I referenced will be hit this year as the income collapse continues. Among many of our members, the feeling is that the income collapse in 2021 may be worse and more significant than the income collapse in 2020. We need to be conscious of this.

Benefacts will shortly publish an important report that we are optimistic will provide further information in terms of ascertaining the facts.

Even with the work of Benefacts and the Charities Regulator, I appeal to the committee to support the identification of further resources to conduct the research that we believe is needed to get a granular picture of the extent of the damage that might result in critical essential services during the rest of the crisis and the period of adjustment.

I hope all members will have had a chance to review our submission. Our top item for the budget consideration therefore is to focus on adequate and sustainable funding. We provide additional information, which I will not go through now but which we could perhaps discuss during the morning's consideration, on how a more sustainable funding model could be introduced. Key elements of it include multi-annual funding. I am sure the committee will be interested in understanding that better.

Pre-Covid, the second biggest challenge facing Ireland's charities, community and voluntary organisations and social enterprises is the regulatory and compliance requirements. None of our members have issues with the fact we now have a much more robust regulatory regime and higher quality reporting - that is all good - but there are costs that go with that, in general it is difficult to fundraise for the cost of compliance, and Departments often do not allocate funds to enable organisations they fund to meet the costs of complying. The costs are considerable. I urge members to have a look at the Charities Regulator's report if they get a chance. It is very accessible on the Charities Regulator's website. Compliance and the time costs and money costs associated with compliance are the second biggest challenge facing Ireland's charities currently. We are asking in our submission for a process to streamline the regulatory and funding-related compliance requirements and that the cost of compliance would be supported as an earmarked component of any statutory funds that are made available.

The Department of Rural and Community Development has produced a fabulous report. It is the report on sustainable, inclusive and empowered communities, containing many very good commitments. We congratulate the Department on its production. There are significant costs associated with delivering those, so we would be looking for a carefully costed programme from the Department on the costs associated with delivering the commitments in the plan and that they would be provided for in the budget.

Similarly, there is a national social enterprise strategy with which I would recommend members of the committee to familiarise themselves. It is published by the same Department and again contains a set of comprehensive and welcome actions to support social enterprises. None of these strategies were in place a couple of years ago so it is great the Irish community and voluntary sector, the charities sector and the social enterprise sector are now receiving the statutory attention they have so long sought. The Department has also produced a strategy on volunteering. One of our asks is that these strategies, now that we have them, would be very well resourced and protected. We are very encouraged by the fact the Government did not take in any way an austerity approach to dealing with the crisis. We have shown as a society and as an economy that we can do things in a way that is not based on austerity, and given that the cost of borrowing is low, we are very much looking forward to encouraging the Government to continue to invest in social services, environmental action and cultural and social services generally in budget 2022.

Ms Garvey pointed out the extent of the labour force in the community and voluntary sector. There is currently no dedicated, coherent training and development programme for the community and voluntary sector, and we are calling for an increased level of National Training Fund resource to go to supporting a comprehensive training and development programme for the community and voluntary sector. The private sector has one. The public sector has a very solid training and development programme, but this is something that has been lacking for a number of years in the third sector, the community and voluntary sector, and we need to see some attention focused on that now.

Ms Garvey mentioned the extremely positive increase in collaborative working our members have been reporting that generally held last year. Public servants and community and voluntary employees and trustees and volunteers all put their shoulder to the same wheel. The prevailing focus on compliance and financial reporting was put to one side. Everybody agreed on the single priority that we should support people through the crisis and collaborate together in the doing of that. That became priority number one. The fabulous thing is that is indeed what happened. Our members report really improved relationships between public servants and community and voluntary organisations during the crisis. There is some concern now that it is showing signs already of a reversion to previous form, where the focus is returning to financial compliance and other such matters. That would be something we would very strongly urge does not happen.

The health dialogue forum chaired by Peter Cassells is a source for optimism in this regard. It is a place where the community and voluntary sector will be talking to the Department of Health and the HSE about how we can continue a more collaborative approach to work. The forum will be publishing an interesting report soon, and I urge all members of this committee to familiarise themselves with the work of that group in the Department of Health because we hope the forum will provide a model for deeper social dialogue and collaborative and partnership working as we go on from here.

I will leave it at that. The report we have submitted is rich. I have highlighted a few points I felt were worthy of being specifically drawn to the attention of committee members.