Mr. J.P. Mulherin:

I will make a few comments and then will get my colleague to come in on some the social inclusion stuff as well.

Regarding SICAP and Ukraine in particular, I commend the work which the local development companies are doing on the ground. They are really making a significant contribution to the integration and support for Ukrainians and indeed those seeking international protection. From our perspective in the Department, an additional €5 million was provided in the second half of last year and €10 million this year. This was specific additional funding on top of what local development companies already had to assist with that existing additional workload and burden. There is no doubting that there is additional pressure in what they are doing but we are confident the additional funding is certainly going a good deal of the way to supporting them in that work. Again, I will turn to Ms Kelly in a few minutes to say a bit more about that.

As regards the LCDCs, the underspend is fairly marginal. It is more operational than anything else and is not significant in terms of the funding that is going into it. There is a huge level of engagement. LCDCs are getting involved in more and more things all of the time. There is a specific unit in our Department to support the LCDCs. There is funding going into staffing in the LCDCs to the work they are doing. There was a review of that recently to ascertain whether that was sufficient or what additional supports we could provide. There was also guidance produced recently to assist engagement with the community and voluntary sector and guidance around all of that, which again should help community engagement as referenced in the Deputy's remarks.

On the community centre fund specifically, there was a huge demand for it and huge investment going into it. The information I am getting is that the delivery is very strong and that the level of spend under the programme is very healthy. We always run into problems with capital funds. We have seen it under the RRDF, in particular, but we see it right across the programmes which the Department is delivering. We have always shown a degree of flexibility in cases where projects run into trouble. We understand that these are communities trying to deliver these projects. At the same time, we are also conscious of our responsibility to manage the funding we have and try to deliver projects as quickly as we can. When projects are delayed, it potentially removes that funding from being available to others. However, insofar as we can, we always work with those who have been given the funding to try to overcome those problems and I suspect that will continue to be the case under the community centres fund. I suggest they engage with Pobal and the Department as part of that, if the Deputy is referring to a very particular case.

The community services programme has been completely reviewed over the past year. The new scheme was launched at the start of this year. Some really substantial changes were made to the programme. Additional funding is now available for the existing groups and for the staff and the managers within those CSP organisations. A lot of work is being done behind the scenes in monitoring performance and looking at what has been achieved. The review has shown it is a very successful programme. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, has launched a new call for new organisations to come into it. This is now closed. There is a considerable level of demand for that as well. It is a real positive story around the community service programme and how it is helping social enterprises and those who are distant from the labour market and providing community spaces and services. There has been some drop-off in spend in the year the Deputy referenced. We are confident that will not be repeated given the additional funding that is being provided to these organisations. After the review that was done of the programme, we might have expected the changes to have come in sooner than they actually did but they are in place now. I will hand over to Ms Kelly on the social inclusion programme.