Mr. Peter Brabazon:

The timing is the problem. We had two projects which, effectively, are now funded from the Dormant Accounts Fund. One ended in the middle of last year and we had recruited three people for that, so we decided to try to keep those roles. That is a challenge for us because we have not filled in that funding since. The other one, which Ms Murphy has led, the ability programme, as it is called, with Pobal and the Department behind it, has seen agreement to continue it for another year. All of us, that is, the 27 charities in social enterprises, had hoped to gain funding from the European Social Fund, but that has not happened. Our problem there is that I have three people associated with that programme for whom, technically, I do not have the funding yet, although it has been said that there will be a programme starting on 1 January. It is a little tight. I am talking on behalf of all 27 charities here. We are retaining the people. Ms Murphy herself has years of experience, not just with us but also before us. Those are the challenges.

The only point I will make about the administration side - and I ran a programme in the area of education for the Government - is that the support we get from Pobal, which is limited by the EU or otherwise sometimes, is typically, for the administration side, between 7% and 10%.

I have done the calculations and, when I used to run the programme, the administration cost of many programmes was approximately 15% of the total. The provision for administration costs under the wage subsidy scheme is actually very fair. Once you have more than three people, you get 10% of the business you are doing, that is, the amount going out in grants. If you are hosting three people, you get 10% of their salaries as well as administration costs. It goes up to 20% after you have ten people. That is very good. It is reasonable. That is another challenge arising from the system. The provision for administration is too low. There was a line on this in my note. I said that there should be extra funding when partnerships are formed. That is a key thing because partnerships take a little bit of administration. You have to have a service level agreement and that type of thing and you sometimes have to align things. We have had to manage insurances and so on. There is an administration load involved.