Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely, but we might refer back to the Department at that stage in this regard.

I wish to raise a couple of points. The first concerns the report we are considering. There is slow spending in respect of large capital projects. This has been acknowledged by the Department in the opening statement and the documentation provided. The committee plans to look at this matter in the autumn. One issue being raised with us is that community groups not only have to raise funding to meet the co-financing requirement, or in some cases, the local authorities, but they can also only draw down funds once the works are completed. For community organisations in particular, this causes a problem in the context of trying to get bridging finance.

The committee is going to look at this issue. We will have witnesses before us in October. I know the Department is also examining this aspect, so if it has any thoughts on what could help to improve the drawdown of funds, then we would be extremely interested in hearing from it in advance of our hearings. Ultimately, I do not think there is a public servant in the country who would not like to see a far more active drawing down of capital funding. We all want to see this happening. The last thing we want is to have a roll-over of these funds and it then being necessary to go back to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to get money. Everyone is at one in respect of this objective. If the Department, then, has any thoughts on this issue they could feed into the committee's consideration of it in terms of making recommendations to the Government and to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, then we would be very interested in hearing them.

The other matter of interest is the performance report itself. Regarding the various programmes, and especially programme A, under the rural regeneration and development fund, it has set targets for projects completed. This is a good type of target to have. It was explained why there was a failure in this regard and this is understandable under the circumstances. In terms of the town and village renewal scheme and the outdoor recreation initiative, however, the breakdown in this regard has been given in respect of the projects approved. The delivery of schemes is a far more effective metric from our perspective than the number of projects approved for funding. The projects approved for funding are probably of more interest to the Minister in terms of announcements. In the context of evaluating impact, however, the funds drawn down would be a more effective metric for us.

Another thing that would be useful, and I know the Department does this anyway, concerns case studies. No two projects are the same, but undertaking and making available a broad range of case studies looking at different aspects and how funding is used would be beneficial, not just from our perspective in examining how this money is impacting on the ground but also in respect of giving ideas to other communities as to how best they could undertake such initiatives. I say this because, thankfully, this funding has had a dramatic impact in communities right across the country. We are beginning to see the results now. There has been a long lead-in to this. Communities are now, though, considering how they can take the next steps. These case studies could be of benefit to them undertaking that work.

One weakness in programme A, in particular, is that we do not have a headline indicator in respect of island communities. The committee strongly feels that there needs to be a headline indicator for this area.

The single most effective headline would probably be access, that is, the number of people accessing and egressing the islands. Access in terms of infrastructure at piers, ferry services and air services could all be encompassed by a single metric of access. Something like that would be useful.

My final question relates to the Charities Regulator or Charities Regulatory Authority. We have had the Charities Regulatory Authority here before us. It is redoubling efforts to try to bring as many people under the regulatory system as possible. A useful metric for us as a committee would be not so much the number of organisations that are registered or that the Charities Regulator has received reports from but the number of new organisations that have registered and the number of new reports that have been received. We know there is a level of underproduction of reports and that there is a challenge in terms of the number of charities that are registered. There may be some that deregister or do not renew their registration but new registrations would be a good indicator for us as a committee.

I thank the witnesses again for their commitment to engage with the committee further on some of these metrics. We all have the one objective here. I do not know if Mr. Mulherin has any closing remarks he would like to make.