Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, apologies for being late. I was participating in a Topical Issue debate. I do not have many questions. I do think the availability of bridging loans is crucial. Making more companies aware of it is something that could be done. I will plug my own community association, of which I am a member. It got a lot of support from Clann Credo - the Presentation Sisters set that up - for delivering local football pitches for our community which is one of the communities that Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned, that was a RAPID area in Cork city. Clann Credo is an excellent organisation.

On the philanthropy side, I must mention the Tomar Trust and Tom Cavanagh who passed away last year. He had a huge impact on so many things, particularly in Cork but also right across the State and, indeed, beyond. He was a very generous man who left a huge legacy.

Philanthropy Ireland’s opening statement referred to the much greater proportion of giving trusts that exist in Britain. I think it is right that the United States has a very different model. Even the fact that it is a different economic model to some extent has an impact and I am not sure that I would trade that, to be honest. Greater levels of inequality might aid philanthropy but I do not know if it does much for the people on the ground. But there is no doubt that philanthropy has a role. I suppose Britain might be a better comparison. Why does Philanthropy Ireland think there is a greater level of trusts in Britain than here?

In its opening statement, the Western Development Commission demonstrated how it has been able to support a lot of communities to benefit from EU funding. As a State, which is a slightly different thing, we do not always perform particularly well at drawing down European funding such as how we did not draw a lot from the Covid recovery fund. That is more related to Departments and whether they seek funding rather than the community organisations which are usually different streams of EU funding. When there are discussions in community organisations when people are scrambling, sometimes people ask “Is there any bit of money from Europe we could get?” There may or may not be, depending on the circumstances but people do not have a great sense of the kinds of things they can get European money for and how they can do that. Maybe with the work the Western Development Commission is doing in the west means that is more advanced, but can more be done to make communities aware of the opportunities that exist or to make it easier to avail of some of the various streams of EU funding? I imagine some might be quite onerous in the paperwork or whatever but there may be greater potential than is being realised.