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

It is important to say we are processing the additional €10 million for the fresh applications to the stability fund this year.

Without pre-empting all of the decisions, the initial indications are that those community and voluntary organisations that are in a difficult position will be in a better position after this. I believe the Deputy's initial question was what about this year, given that these organisations were in a bad position last year. The application process indicates that we will be able to support a good few of them to a sufficient degree, if I can speak in a broad term. I believe we will have more details in a few weeks' time when decisions come out.

In terms of the community services programme, when I came into office last year I realised that it was the first programme that we needed to give attention to. We did so during the budget last year. As the Deputy will see, additional money has been provided for the programme. We also found other funds for it from what was left over last year. I made a priority out of highlighting the need for these projects. Earlier this year, we created an additional support fund of €4.5 million. That can be spent throughout the year. I hear what has been said about organisations saying that they are running out of funds, and we will take that view away.

We are approaching the position now where a lot of the organisations can open. I understand that people are not exactly flocking back to their community centres in large numbers and we are not quite at that stage. We hope, over the next few months, that there will be some semblance of a return to normality, including in respect of the income that centres can generate but that obviously depends on the public health restrictions, which are going in the right direction.

I take the point made about SICAP. It is a multi-annual funding programme. Obviously there is guaranteed money in the programme period. We have received a request to extend the current iteration of SICAP another year and we will make a decision next week. I take the point made about the need for an increase.

There have been other things, in addition to SICAP, in the whole area of social inclusion and community development that have started since the cuts, which have been mentioned. A significant proportion of LEADER funding is spent on social inclusion projects, the community enhancement programme has started since and there is additional funding in the area of volunteering. SICAP is on my radar in terms of a programme that needs to be augmented.

The Deputy asked about the pilot community development programme. Part of the logic of that is to make a first step towards filling the gap that was left in terms of what happened to previous community development projects. It is a pilot scheme because things are starting up again and we want to see how it goes. The level of interest is extremely encouraging. As approximately 150 applications have been received, clearly there is a hunger to use this approach across the country and we received multiple applications from every county. That is a good sign in terms of the scheme's potential for growth.

On the community enhancement programme, I am sure that members will be aware that we have given supports over time to Huntstown and Hartstown. Connected to that it is important to say that the community services programme, which they depend on as well, is under review at the moment to try to make it more appropriate for the different types of organisations involved, including the funding model. There is a wide variety of organisations in the community services programme. The restructuring review, in which we are in the middle of doing, seeks to tailor it a little bit to the different types of organisations, which includes funding and training.

A point was made about providing supports for community centres and structures. We have made a submission on community centres to the national development plan and await news. A lot could be done on the capital side for community centres and we await a response to our submission. I believe that I have touched on most of the issues that have been raised.