Ms Eilis Murray:

I absolutely believe there is an opportunity to consider everything, or all the models. We do not want philanthropy to work exclusively with government, but at the same time we want alignment with government. The programmes of the Atlantic Philanthropies and Genio all worked alongside the Government to pull together to achieve a specific objective. The answer to the Cathaoirleach's question is that there is an opportunity. It is wonderful that he is looking for further comments after this session. He mentioned co-designing with Departments. In this regard, one of the things we know from philanthropy is that it works well when it co-designs with projects. Several of our organisations would invest in supporting a project in identifying and mapping, and in determining the need in the first instance or what a good application could look like, or both. The aim is to take organisations through the process so there is no fall-down at the final hurdle. The co-design concept is discussed a lot in the context of trust-based philanthropy, whereby the projects themselves have an input into what the design might look like.

Mr. Traynor might refer to the projects being considered for philanthropic support for a fund. There is an opportunity to work together, which is certainly an ambition of ours.

To answer the question on the White Paper and whether it has gone to any other Departments, one aim of ours was to see the draft national policy. Seeing it published was such a welcome development, as was knowing it is now coming to a conclusion of sorts, the next stage being implementation. We suggested the White Paper in our budget submission. It is certainly our intention to take it further because we believe it is a way of collectively considering how the sector can be stimulated. It is not necessarily just about tax incentives, because co-funding could happen. I often point to the investment the Government made in supporting the establishment of Community Foundation Ireland back in 2000. A sum of €1 million was invested. That fund is now almost €60 million, and it is dispersing in excess of €25 million annually. Therefore, there are other ways and mechanisms. Yes, we will now be pushing forward to seek support for the White Paper, and we would very much welcome the committee's support on that.