Mr. Ivan Cooper:

We are considering matters related to unlocking EU funding. We have heard contributions from Dr. O'Doherty that help us to understand what is drawn down by Ireland. It is a question of increasing the take that accrues to Ireland from centralised programmes in particular and, in relation to all such centralised programmes, ensuring that all of Ireland's EU allocation is, in fact, spent. That is part of it as well. There are different elements to this. Some of it has to do with raising awareness. Deputy Howlin will be aware, from his stint as the chair of the Special EU Programmes Body, of the effort that goes into telling the good news stories. The problem is that good news stories are just hard to sell. It is a challenge.

It might include the media. I know the effort that is currently put into SEUPB to publicise and raise awareness of the amount and the impact of the investment, and the challenge of that. We certainly need to do more on that and up the game.

Sometimes, we can overcomplicate things. It is clear, coming through here, that there is something about providing more support for people and organisations to apply. It is all very simple. This includes Access Europe and could be provided through EU officers and information officers in local authorities. There is something about ensuring that match funding is put in place to enable applications, especially from smaller groups that can find themselves crowded out. When we hear the costs associated with preparing bids, the risk that accrues to unsuccessful applications with regard to carrying the costs of those bids is enough to scare even fairly well resourced community and voluntary organisations with good confidence in their own abilities. They take fairly serious hits if they cannot get the application over the line. By the way, it also means that an industry develops in consulting on this. If one does not have access to those kinds of experts, one is not even in the game.

I am going to be clear about it. The failure rates for access from initial application stages are quite high. Access Europe and schemes such as this hand-hold voluntary sector personnel, staff and volunteer trustees through processes where otherwise they would be afraid and would not go anywhere near it.

Earlier, Ms Murtagh pointed out an important fund and additional contribution relating to mainstreaming, as I call it, or scaling up funds, so that successful projects that have taken off and delivered an outcome that is good can find a home in the system so the activity does not just die away when the particular funds are put into place. My experience with SEUPB, for example, is that it is really good. We have European funds and Departments that have oven-ready projects which have been developed over five to ten years ready to drop into place to receive the European funding and co-financing from the Departments. Effectively, while that may be strategically impactful at the macro scale, it means that little is left for organisations that are coming at it from a bottom-up, needs-based approach. If they see a need that has emerged in the past year or two, when they get their application in, it is so undercooked that it does not stand a chance in the face of these initiatives.

I refer to a match funding facility for smaller organisations. Part of our objective has to be to increase the take to Ireland. I am saying to maximise the impact by spreading the benefit more widely. That has something to do with supporting smaller organisations to be able to participate in the process of landing funds. That needs match funding because it is just not there at the moment.