Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome everyone to the meeting of the Seanad Public Consultation Committee. Unfortunately, several committee members cannot be here.

I welcome Ms Deirdre Mortell from One Foundation; Mr. Paul O'Hara from Ashoka Ireland; and Mr. Seán Coughlan from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. Each group will have 15 minutes to make a presentation. I propose that the committee take a 15 minute break between the second and third groups. When it comes to the question and answer sessions, I must give priority to the questions of committee members, but I will try to facilitate everyone. I ask committee members to be brief and not make statements about how good the delegates are. They are very good because otherwise they would not be here. I also ask committee members to ask concise and precise questions. If somebody rabbits on for four or five minutes, he or she will prevent other members from asking perhaps pertinent questions. I hope we will all be sensible and mature.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to the committee. If, however, they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence related to the subject matter of these proceedings should be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person, persons or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

I ask our first guest, Ms Mortell from One Foundation, to synopsise her submission.

Ms Deirdre Mortell:

I thank the committee for the invitation to appear before it. It is exciting to know that the Seanad Public Consultation Committee is taking an interest in the development of social entrepreneurship in Ireland. I will speak about One Foundation's role in the development of social entrepreneurship and, more particularly, why we chose to get involved in it and what we think social entrepreneurship contributes to Ireland. I will discuss One Foundation's establishment in 2004, when nobody in Ireland had heard of the phrase "social entrepreneur", and the role it has played more recently in providing growth capital for the market. I will also discuss the barriers and opportunities we see for social entrepreneurs and how the committee might be able to contribute in this regard.

One Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation established in 2004. We are funded by Mr. Declan Ryan of the Ryanair family and the fields in which we provide grant funding are children and families, youth mental health, the integration of minorities and social entrepreneurship. We fund social entrepreneurship in Ireland and Vietnam. Ours is a limited life foundation, which means we will close at the end of this year. This will inform the remarks I will make on some of the opportunities and barriers for social entrepreneurs. We believe we are part of a philanthropy relay race, have played our part in the past ten years and that the next generation of philanthropists will pick up the baton from us and play their role.

We became involved in catalysing the social entrepreneur movement in Ireland in 2004.

I wish to explain what it was that we saw occurring and what we believed was missing that led us to believe that doing so was important. In 2004, I took a learning trip to the USA to try to find out what I felt I needed to know and I heard the term "social entrepreneur" for the first time. When one considers the term, what it is and why a social entrepreneur is important are obvious. We all accept that entrepreneurs are key to a healthy economy and innovation. Consequently, social entrepreneurs are key to social innovation and a healthy society and social economy. However, if they are so important, why could we not see them in 2004 when we were looking? It is obvious that we had them even if we did not have the term. We are all familiar with people such as Ms Mary Davis, Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy and Fr. Peter McVerry, but we could not see where the next generation of social entrepreneurs were. I wondered where the people of my age, young entrepreneurs, college graduates or even teenagers were. I could not see them emerging as the next generation of leadership following those who got involved in the 1960s and 1970s. I was well networked in the social sector through my background in Oxfam and Barnardos, but I could not see such people around me.

It occurred to me that the entrepreneurs I mentioned started in the 1960s and 1970s when times were different. Many of them had backgrounds in the religious orders. If one is in a religious order, one does not need to worry about having a roof overhead or a hot meal every evening. This factor influenced why the next generation was not coming through. We were at the height of the Celtic tiger in 2004 and 2005 and parents and peers were more concerned about life choices that built people's status in society or ensured economic security. Perhaps there was no room, moral support or encouragement for people who wanted to pursue other avenues, regardless of the financial aspect. There seemed to be a need to consider how to cultivate the next generation of social entrepreneurs by creating space and providing moral support, credit and practical supports.

While in the US, I was given a copy of a book with which Mr. Paul O'Hara will be familiar, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideasby David Bornstein. It is based on the Ashoka story. It was hot off the press at the time. The case studies involved certain people, but I was worried about the next generation. It seemed like a fit for our perceptions of Ireland at that moment.

Mr. Declan Ryan, my co-founder in One Foundation, has an investment background and understands how to back entrepreneurs and expand their businesses and innovations in an Irish as well as a global context, mainly in terms of aviation but also other areas. My background is in the voluntary sector, raising finance for organisations such as Barnardos. It was clear to us that backing individuals with entrepreneurial qualities and innovations could solve some of the social problems that were either entrenched or increasingly emerging in the middle of the Celtic tiger era. Someone needed to act.

The model seemed simple. Social entrepreneurs need the same supports as entrepreneurs. The model did not need to be invented. We have venture capital funds, angel investors, Enterprise Ireland and many other supports for entrepreneurs in business, but there was nothing along those lines for social entrepreneurs or people acting in the social sector. There was no practical support, targeted financing or, in particular, moral support. When children in the generation after mine left college or did their leaving certificates, their parents did not tell them to consider what they could do for society. There was a great deal of pressure to be a doctor, lawyer or banker. People were not being encouraged to take that risk as a career or life choice.

To cut a long story short, we invited Ashoka to come to Ireland and supported it in its early years. We also incubated Social Entrepreneurs Ireland under Mr. Seán Coughlan's leadership. Later, we decided to replicate Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in Vietnam. What have we learned after ten years? Mr. Coughlan, Mr. O'Hara and others have led the social entrepreneurship movement and we have stepped back as a result. We have focused on growth capital for not-for-profit bodies. I wish to discuss our work to date and some of the barriers and opportunities presenting.

In ten years, One Foundation has provided more than 35 organisations in Ireland with growth capital to make a step change in their impact on the fields of youth mental health, children and families, minority integration and social entrepreneurship. We set ourselves eight ambitious goals, one of which was to transform youth mental health services in Ireland. I will explain why we provided certain supports. We call them our investment model. I will outline a case study instead of giving a long theoretical explanation. We have used a model of support that replicates the support provided by venture capital backers in business. We know that high-performing entrepreneurs and not-for-profit organisations have the same needs as for-profit companies, namely, growth capital of a meaningful scale, technical supports that enable them to put that money hard to work - business planning, impact measurement systems, etc. - and networks that can bring other inputs to the table - for example, board members, capital, recruitment and talent.

My example is that of BeLonG To Youth Services, with which some Senators may be familiar. Based in Dublin, it provides youth services to the lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender, LGBT, community. These services were originally only available in Dublin, but they have been extended throughout Ireland. We "invested" in BeLonG To Youth Services. I use inverted commas because we are a grant maker, in that we do not look for financial returns from the grants we provide, but we always view it as investment because we want to be able to name and measure the social return on our grants. We invested in BeLonG To Youth Services to help it expand its network of youth services for LGBT young people outside of Dublin. When we first became involved in 2006, it was providing Sunday afternoon drop-in programmes on youth work. People were getting the bus from Donegal to Dublin and back again on the same day, they were so desperate to access the service. That the service was necessary was obvious, but there was no money. If 5% to 10% of the population is LGBT, 42,000 people in Ireland between the ages of 14 and 23 years could not get support if they lived outside Dublin. From other evidence, we know that mental health problems are most likely to emerge during adolescence and that this age group has a higher risk of suicide and self-harm.

We invested €1.425 million in BeLonG To Youth Services over six years. It is a big number, but we did not invest it all in one go. We broke it down into three-year investments - they were really grants - that focused on different stages of the organisation's development. We wanted it to expand its youth services from Dublin to nationwide, ensure that the Department of Education and Skills came on board to combat homophobic bullying, change public attitudes, promote solidarity among young people - befriending, basically - and increase the organisation's fund-raising capacity so that it could be strong after we left. In line with our investment model, we first provided €100,000 over a year to strengthen the organisation's core staff and tested its ability to deliver. It did great. We then paid for BeLonG To Youth Services to draft an ambitious business plan in which it could set out in writing and drill through the details of its ambitious goals and how it was going to achieve and measure them - for example, how long they would take, how many more staff would be required and what those staff would be doing. This planning is harder than it seems. We liked the plan when we saw it and contributed €750,000 at the time to hire the staff necessary to expand services nationally and train youth workers in other youth organisations to fund-raise, handle communications and campaigning, etc.

It was all about strengthening the organisation to achieve its big mission. It was an investment in the core strengths of the organisation. Much of the time this is referred to as "overhead" but to us it is growth capital. I want to draw the committee's attention to the fact that organisations are often informed - in the media and other places - that they have too much overhead. In business that is not referred to as overhead, it is what one needs to grow and to build one's mission. Overhead, in terms of the way it is defined, is often a good thing and not a bad thing. We are very happy to support that.

We followed up with a second round of investment of €500,000 to take the growth to the next stage. The organisation is now involved in dialogue with the political parties and the Department of Education and Skills on a campaign to tackle homophobic bullying in schools. Essentially, it has achieved all the objectives in which we invested. The guidelines were produced by the Department of Education and Skills, which is engaged with combating homophobic bullying in schools. BeLonG To has expanded nationally and reaches 2,700 young people each year. The number it probably needs to reach is 3,000, so it is very close to its goal. We are really happy with BeLonG To's success. It is a brilliant organisation. We are of the view that we, together with the State, put in the right money at the right time in order to make that happen.

What we did was invest the risk capital. It is extremely important to consider the role of philanthropy in a social democracy such as Ireland. We can be the risk capital. The State has the Comptroller and Auditor General crawling all over its money. It is very difficult for the State to take risks. This is because risk capital will sometimes fail. It will fail quite often, actually. It is very difficult for the State to take that risk. However, philanthropy can take it and this can take the form of growth capital. When that proves effective, for example, once BeLonG To has grown and we can see that the services it provides actually work, then the State can choose - if it believes in those services - to pick up the baton in the context of funding them. Basically, we have taken the risk.

What have we learned? Ireland can hold its head high with regard to its track record on social innovation. Senators will hear some examples in that regard in a few moments. Many of these have been developed by social entrepreneurs but barriers remain. The first such barrier is the lack of growth capital in Ireland for the next generation. We only worked in very specific areas and we did not work in lots of others. There is a lack of philanthropic growth capital in Ireland, particularly at the scale required. Our average grant was €750,000. That is a great deal of money. Not many philanthropies in Ireland are giving out that kind of money and we are closing down our operations. It is not possible to grow an organisation based on funds committed year by year. That is how the State works at present. There is not enough growth capital and it is drying up.

The second barrier is that the model of supports provided by venture capital for entrepreneurs is just not available to social entrepreneurs in this country. Again, this is not at the scale it needs to be. The funds provided need to be structured properly and they must be available for what is called - but what is not - overhead. I refer in this regard to management, salaries, marketing, IT, etc. Technical supports must be wrapped around these. The committee will hear much more about that from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka Ireland. Entrepreneurs require access to mentoring and to networks.

The third barrier is that State contracts for social services need to be clearer in their commissioning criteria in order to give new entrants a fighting chance of winning them. Funding should, in particular, more often be contingent on the outcomes that are delivered rather than on historic funding relationships. We see that happening right across the commissioning bodies throughout the State with responsibility in the area of social services, including the Departments of Health, Education and Skills and Social Protection, agencies with responsibility for housing, etc. We need to move away from the approach which states that "We have always funded them so they must be good and we know them well" to one where we evaluate - based on outcomes and value for money considerations - who can be the best provider of the services required. We have not yet made that move in Ireland. It is a significant challenge but it is something which we must do.

Ireland's Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising has been developing a national social innovation fund, which will be launched later this year. The role of this fund will be to provide more growth capital into the market, not just in specific areas but actually for Ireland's best social innovations. The latter could be in any area. This is being developed under the auspices of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, who appointed the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising to consider how to stimulate philanthropy in Ireland and put it to best use. The Seanad could really help by getting behind that initiative as it emerges. We believe it should be launched at some point in the second half of the year. As everyone is aware, however, nothing is launched until it is launched and Ireland is experiencing hard times. We believe the money can and will be found. However, we would welcome anything the Seanad can do to back that initiative. We can have all the networks and technical supports we like but if we do not have the growth capital that goes with them, they will find it difficult to make a difference.

I thank the committee for its time.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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We will now take questions. We are confined to questions and anyone who wishes to make a speech will be cut off.

Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)
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Good on the Chairman.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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The first questions will come from Senators Healy Eames and Mac Conghail.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chairman for hosting this session. I welcome the representatives from One Foundation, Ashoka Ireland and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. Last spring I was present at Farmleigh and met representatives from Ashoka Ireland and the Change Nation process. I was blown away by what they were setting out to do in Ireland and by the potential this has in the context of bringing to this country the solutions it needs.

Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)
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Speech.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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The representatives from Ashoka Ireland have not yet made their presentation.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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I understand that. However, Ms Mortell from One Foundation has acknowledged-----

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I made it clear to the committee earlier - the Senator was late arriving - that I will allow no speeches. Members should confine themselves to asking questions.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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I was about to ask a question and I again thank the Chairman for hosting this event.

I am conscious that One Foundation will be closing its doors at the end of the year. That is a matter of concern. Will there be time for those with projects that would meet its criteria to present to One Foundation? I refer, in particular, to projects which involve young people and creativity and which will allow them to make a difference. Does One Foundation have in place a review team to which those to whom I refer might present?

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I will bank the first three sets of questions and Ms Mortell can then reply.

Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)
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I would like some clarity in respect of the ideal of measuring the social return. One Foundation would have set targets and would have informed BeLonG To that it needed to operate on a nationwide basis and so on. That feels like a project with an end and I cannot quite work out what - with the exception of the change in the language - what is the entrepreneurial element. I refer, of course, to calling it something other than overhead. A project may be set targets and given the funding to achieve them and its progress may be monitored but I cannot identify where the transition to social entrepreneurship occurs. It is not that I do not believe what has been said, it is just that I do not quite get it.

Fiach MacConghail (Independent)
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I thank Ms Mortell for her presentation. She highlighted the biggest risk that exists, namely, the lack of philanthropic capital and indicated how we might progress the recommendations from the report of the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising. Will Ms Mortell be more specific? Perhaps she might pretend that this is the Dáil rather than the Seanad about the crisis we face. In that context, not only is One Foundation winding down its operations this year but many other philanthropies are also doing so. If she were Minister, what would Ms Mortell do about the crisis to which I refer? The Departments of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Environment, Community and Local Government have a number of philanthropic initiatives and these are mediated by the Department of Finance, I presume, through the annual Finance Bill.

Could I have the bottom line and a comment on the current legislative context? If Ms Mortell were the Minister, what would she deliver? What message could we send back?

Ms Deirdre Mortell:

On the first question, we are technically closing at the end of this year, but we actually closed our grant-making arrangement in December 2012. Our funds are now closed and fully committed. The straight answer is "No".

On the question on the link between social entrepreneurs and growth capital, I will answer it in part. It will be answered fully in the presentations that follow my contribution. We are covering different matters. Social entrepreneurs are usually start-up or early stage entrepreneurs. Mr. Paul O'Hara's and Mr. Seán Coughlan's organisations are working directly with social entrepreneurs. One Foundation is not. When social entrepreneurs emerged from support from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland or Ashoka, or both, they might have come to One Foundation for growth capital. They would have tested their ideas and shown they could work, and they would have built some networks, etc. On doing so, they say their initiative is working in Dublin and ask how it can be grown. This process involves One Foundation. It is not all black and white and there is some passing around. The idea is that social entrepreneurs who have shown that their initiatives can work, have value for Ireland and can be cost-effective in some way and at some level but probably on a relatively small scale can avail of a bigger growth capital fund for the larger amount of money and wider supports that they require, perhaps on a national or international basis. One Foundation would have provided that part, but there would already have been something to work with.

BeLonG To was about five years old. It had 100 young people coming to it every week in Dublin and this had been the case for four years. It had four or five staff when we met the representatives. We asked whether the initiative worked and how we could know this. We also asked about the evidence base. We asked whether the evidence base needed to be built a little more before we could think about growing the model and asked the right way to grow the model. There is not a single way to take an initiative to a national level; there are three or four options. In the business planning service we offered we could have examined the various growth models. Should one run BeLonG To in every county, work with the mainstream e-services and just train those concerned? Should one licence one's model? There are many ways in which this could be done. We would have examined all the options to determine what would work in the context of a given organisation, bearing in mind its skill set. We would then have formulated a relevant cost and financial model. This view will emerge in the other presentations also.

Fiach MacConghail (Independent)
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My question was not answered.

Ms Deirdre Mortell:

What would I do if I were Minister? The forum on philanthropy has produced a wide set of recommendations. I have not elaborated on all of them today, as it would take too long. However, a number of them concern cultural change. The social innovation brand is about the simple problem that there is not enough growth capital in the country. That probably has the most direct effect on social entrepreneurship. There are a number of proposals that affect the social and voluntary sector as a whole in regard to tax-effective giving. Some specific sectors and some broader ones are being debated by the finance committee. Examining and supporting them are important. It is challenging to try to get tax incentives through the finance committee and the Department of Finance, but they could have a very real impact on supporting social entrepreneurs and the wider voluntary sector. I encourage Senators to consider this.

The forum on philanthropy will launch a national giving campaign later this year. It will be about encouraging everybody in the country to give a little more in accordance with their means. It will appeal to all of Ireland, including the corporate sector and individuals. One does not have to be rich or poor; one can just give according to one's means. It is a case of putting a bit of oomph behind the fact that we all need to give. Perhaps we should think about giving in a more planned and structured way. We are brilliant at putting the money in the pot – we are the best in the world at it – but only approximately 15% of Irish people think about planning their giving. If we decided to give €5 per month to our favourite organisation instead of putting a tenner in the pot, it could be transformative for organisations in that they could plan what they were trying to achieve. If the Seanad chose to take an interest in the giving campaign, it would be fantastic. Those are the three points I would mention.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I thank the delegates for attending. I apologise for having been a little late coming to the Chamber. I congratulate the delegation on the work being done with BeLonG To. I am very familiar with its work. It has made exceptional progress in recent years in expanding, developing and rolling out services, which is really impressive.

With regard to Ms Mortell's comment on the forum on philanthropy, my question is on the ending of philanthropy. Senator Fiach Mac Conghail stated Atlantic Philanthropies was also ending its giving phase this year. The end of the giving term is clearly a very common phenomenon in philanthropy. What does one do afterwards? Ms Mortell referred to the effort to try to encourage philanthropy generally. As with the Obama campaign, it is a question of more people donating small amounts rather than large foundations giving larger amounts. Clearly, there must also be a State take-up. Is there another approach for foundations seeking to exit from donating without causing great upheaval in the social entrepreneurship sector they have been funding? I am conscious that there will be many difficult transitions for those bodies that have been supported by philanthropic associations.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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My question is supplementary to that of Senator Bacik. It is regrettable to see One Foundation coming to an end. Irrespective of the financial element, could the human resources and expertise the organisation has developed in terms of mentoring, leading, engagement and development be harnessed and retained for the betterment of the country in general?

On the principle behind the giving campaign that has been launched, the Irish are unique when there is a need for a meitheal effort. A partnership between the Government and organisations to really promote this aspect could bring the concept of philanthropy to another level.

Jillian van Turnhout (Independent)
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I, too, thank One Foundation for its ten years of funding. Having worked for an organisation that benefited from an investment by One Foundation, I say that from the heart to the foundation and Mr. Declan Ryan, in particular.

Having listened very carefully to what Ms Mortell said, I note that much activity surrounding social entrepreneurship and the examination of social change and its impact involve interaction with the State. Let me ask a question on this because it indicates the role we can play. Ms Mortell has outlined the very positive experience of BeLonG To and the positive interaction with the State. What are some of the challenges for the organisations in which One Foundation is investing in terms of interaction with the State, scaling up and sustainability? Ms Mortell talked about planned giving. Most State funding lines are on an annual basis, not on a multi-annual basis. Are these the types of issues Senators could explore with a view to determining the role the State could play?

Ms Deirdre Mortell:

I thank Senator Martin Conway for his comment on the meitheal effort. It captures the national giving campaign very well. "Meitheal" may well be a word that will be used when the campaign is finalised. The Senator might be pleased to hear that the intention in terms of financing the campaign is to have a co-funding arrangement between the Government, through the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, and philanthropic interests. We are trying to have all of the initiatives walk the walk rather than talk the talk. We would like all of the initiatives emerging from the forum on philanthropy to involve co-funding involving the State and philanthropic interests.

With regard to philanthropic closures and what could be done, much is being done. What more could be done? From the State's perspective, the forum on philanthropy exits to determine this.

I am a member of the forum on philanthropy and we have worked very hard in the past two years to produce a report that was launched by the Taoiseach last July. We must get behind the recommendation to ensure the momentum builds. The forum comprises different Departments and others, among them the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of the Taoiseach, and responsibility for it transferred to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan. The people from the different Departments need to do their bit. The Minister, Deputy Hogan, cannot deliver it on his own. It is like a cog in motion. There are many moving parts. Putting the momentum behind it is very important. It might be a good idea to invite the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising to make a presentation as I think the forum would be very keen to make such a presentation.

As Atlantic Philanthropies and One Foundation bring their grant making to a close, that will remove €40 million to €60 million from the philanthropic funding market by the end of the next three years. It will not finish next year but will be concluded by 2016 or 2017. That is very significant.

We are not seeing new trusts and foundations being set up. There are barriers to the establishment of such bodies which the recommendations of the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising will address if they are followed through, but we also need the economy to lift. There has been much wealth destruction. We are not seeing the emergence of new big trusts and foundations. We had hoped to hand on the baton to a number of different people whom we had hoped would have set up trusts and foundations and we could then apply to them for funding. We do not see that happening. At the same time there are individuals who can give in a more thoughtful way. Until the economy lifts, we need to see a certain level of wealth lift in order to lift it completely.

I never want to lose track of the fact that we can all play our part by our own giving, by encouraging other people to give and by asking one's friends to whom they give. We are a bit shy about talking about it. It is similar to saying it is one's little secret. Why should it be? I ask my friends that question over dinner. It tells me something about who a person is if I know what he or she supports. I do not know why it would be a secret. It is not something of which to be ashamed. There is a little bit in the culture change about getting the conversation going and having it be part of what a person does. We can take the issue very seriously when it can be very light and uplifting.

Members are probably wondering what the One Foundation is doing in its last year if it is not grant making. We are working with our existing grant recipients to support them through the transition. We are putting in many transition supports and a final round of strategic planning. They are dealing with much cost cutting, both from our exit but also from reduced State support. We help them to formulate strategies to ensure the cost cutting they do means they can grow again very quickly when the money flows. We are putting in many technical supports, CEO mentoring, training and fund-raising to help them to make the transition as easy as it can be. For some it will be done very successfully. For others it will be a struggle.

In response to Senator Jillian van Turnhout's question onState interaction, there are many different ways and places in which the State interacts with social entrepreneurs, whether early or later stage organisations. It is difficult to summarise that into one or two recommendations. I do not have a survey of the criteria the Government follows when commissioning services. It would be very interesting to conduct a survey under the headings of whether there are criteria and how much money actually gets spent in that way on State services. No one knows the answer to that, so there will be stories in the presentations this afternoon in that regard. It would be great if there was a systematic approach by the State to how it spends our money and if the best service for the local area and for the money available was known when commissioning youth, disability or employment services for disadvantaged people. Much of the time we do not have the data. We do not ask the organisation to provide it and if they cannot provide it, the State does not pay for it either.

What is required is a level of clarity on commissioning criteria, because they are largely based on historical relationships. That does not mean they are all bad, and probably many of them are fantastic, but we do not know. What is also needed is to make the criteria focus on delivering outcomes for the group that is being targeted, as well as value for money, something about which we all know. Value for money is not the same as cheapest. These are the main points I would raise.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat. There is a common theme among all the presentations. Members will be invited to ask further questions. Before I call Mr. Paul O'Hara of Ashoka Ireland, who I understand is sharing his time slot with Ms Caroline Casey from Kanchi and Mr. James Whelton of CoderDojo, I must reiterate the ruling on privilege.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give this committee. If, however, they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence related to the subject matter of these proceedings should be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Does Mr. O'Hara wish to share the time slot by allowing each speaker five minutes?

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I understand we have been allocated 30 minutes between the three of us.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Each group was to be given 15 minutes, but we will try to facilitate him. When ten minutes elapse, I will remind Mr. O'Hara of the time.

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I thank Senators Quinn, Mac Conghail and Healy Eames for proposing this public consultation. I thank everybody for hearing it.

I wish to give the historical context to this global movement and introduce Ashoka and how it can change a nation. The Members will then hear the contribution of two great social entrepreneurs as part of this submission and I will close with some ideas on how Oireachtas Members can work more closely with social entrepreneurs.

The Ashoka movement was built by Bill Drayton, who could see that all the major social transformations throughout history had been driven by individuals, either visibly or invisibly. He was thinking about people such as Maria Montessori and Florence Nightingale who transformed their fields. They were, of course, not considered social entrepreneurs at the time, but effectively that is what they would now be known as. They saw a problem in their field and they used all the entrepreneurial endeavour of a business entrepreneur to see that the field was transformed. Bill Drayton spent a lot of time in India and was very challenged by the development gap between there and North America where he had grown up. He thought a really key lever of development was identifying these individuals in local community who had transformative ideas across the fields of education, health care and so on. He set about trying to identify them back in 1980. He coined the term "social entrepreneur" and through identifying social entrepreneurs effectively, initiated the field, which has now grown.

The Ashoka network alone has 3,000 social entrepreneurs across 72 countries. The movement has grown far beyond that. The media is covering it widely and there is hardly a business school that does not have a module on social entrepreneurship. The majority of the top business entrepreneurs in the world, Richard Branson and Bill Gates and people like them, are backing social entrepreneurs in some shape or form. It has started to enter the mainstream of politics. José Manuel Barroso has been the champion of social innovation at EU level. President Obama opened an office for social innovation at the White House in the first year of becoming President. In Ireland, the Taoiseach is getting behind this movement, and the hearing today is a testament to it as well.

Let me expound upon the role and value of a social entrepreneur. Their primary function is to solve problems in society, but they also serve a very important role as mass recruiters of change makers.

Therefore, in order to achieve their vision, every social entrepreneur has to recruit thousands of people behind what it is they are trying to achieve. That has a significant impact because some of those change makers will go on to be social entrepreneurs themselves and it changes their identity and sense of responsibility as citizens. In that regard, it is a snowballing movement that is irreversible, which is a hopeful thing to think about. The reason so many people are into it is because it is extremely satisfying to give of yourself to society. I am sure Members of the committee are familiar with that. More and more people are recognising that fact. In the Harvard Business School, more students are taking social enterprise studies than finance, which is demonstrable of this shift.

The role that social entrepreneurs play includes trying to change policy, which is why they will be interacting with the Oireachtas. Some of them are creating entirely new markets that we did not have before. They are building bridges between business and society, which were unbuilt over a few hundred years since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Those bridges are important in tackling major social problems, with the Government, civil society and business working together. Social entrepreneurs are at the nexus of that in many of the big transitions. As I said earlier, they are master change makers, creating a new culture in society. They are also cultivating empathetic ethics, which is an important transition for societies to take.

As regards the overall vision of this movement in Ireland and across the world, from Ashoka's perspective, we are seeking to build societies where everybody can be a change maker. Social entrepreneurs are the key to bringing us there. If one can imagine a world where everybody has the confidence and skill to solve problems where, or even before, they arise, it will equip society much better to deal with the social, economic and environmental challenges we face. It will also be a critical success factor. If Ireland wants to be successful in the global economy, a key thing will be the percentage of the population that are change makers. That is true for any company, city or country. The majority of the skills for change making are learned skills that we can all cultivate from a young age: creativity, leadership, the ability to work with others, and empathy. All these skills can be practised over time.

Ashoka started in 1981 and spread across the world. It started in western Europe initially in 2003. We have since invested about €50 million in supporting 360 social entrepreneurs across 18 countries in Europe. We are trying to build the field from the bottom up. We have supported 12 social entrepreneurs in Ireland, two of which the committee will hear from shortly. As regards the impact of social entrepreneurs, 83% of them will have changed a system at national level within ten years. That is a significant impact that they are all having. More than 90% of them have their ideas independently replicated, which is another very good indicator. If it is copied by somebody, it is a sign that it is a good idea.

We have built this network of 360 social entrepreneurs, as well as 220 business leaders investing. We also have 100 corporate partners and 50 staff across 15 offices in Europe. We now want to use that powerful network to build societies where everyone can be a change maker.

Change Nation was born out of a recognition that a lot of the solutions to Ireland's challenges exist both at home and abroad. A few years ago we started to experiment with importing solutions, the first of which was Ciel Bleu, an organisation in France that provides adapted physical exercise for older people. That is now functioning in about 30 nursing homes and community centres, with more than 1,000 elderly people availing of those services every week across the country. It is doubling in size year on year, so hopefully more than 2,000 people will be involved 12 months from now.

As part of Change Nation, the vision was to bring 50 of the world's top social innovators to Ireland to start working on challenges we face in the fields of education, health care, sustainability, inclusion and job creation. Last March, the 50 people came here and, at this point, some 20 solutions are up and running which impact on people's lives in Ireland. There are another 20 still in the pipeline. Many of the leaders of these ideas are sitting in the Visitors' Gallery, so one can see that they are quite a young contingent - the next generation of change makers in Ireland.

I will cite a couple of examples. One is Roots of Empathy, which is a programme from Canada that has been proven to reduce bullying, aggression and violence amongst young people. It increases pro-social behaviour as well as social and emotional intelligence. For the last 15 years, this has been proven in thousands of schools in Canada and New Zealand. It started in Ireland a couple of years ago and is now in 160 schools across the island of Ireland. The goal with Roots of Empathy is that every young person will have an opportunity to participate in the programme by the end of 2016. That is being done in partnership with Barnados and the HSE. We hope to get the Department of Education and Skills on board with that one as well.

Another example is JUMP Maths, which is a Canadian innovation. Using a new methodology for teaching mathematics, it allows even the weakest children to come up to a much more significant grade based on a new understanding of cognition and of how people learn maths. Under the leadership of the Minister of State, Deputy Ciarán Cannon, that will be piloted in schools across Galway and the Athlone region, starting in September next year.

Project Echo is being championed in the Seanad by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames. It is an innovation from New Mexico that uses video technology which allows consultants to distribute knowledge to general practitioners. It significantly reduces waiting lists and costs in the health care system, thus empowering GPs to deal with more things at a local level. It is done by case learning through video-conferencing. As a starting point, we are seeking to pilot that in the treatment of mental illness, neurology and diabetes. That is progressing along but is a little bit stuck in the HSE. Hopefully, however, the committee might be able to help with that.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Hara has used almost 11 minutes.

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I apologise. I am supposed to have taken ten minutes.

Fiach MacConghail (Independent)
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Your ten could be our 12.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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Change Nation, change time.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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My advice is that it was supposed to be 15 minutes between the three speakers. If Mr. O'Hara wants to go a bit longer, I will have to cut the others.

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

No. I will conclude if I can have 30 seconds.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I will give Mr. O'Hara a minute to wind up.

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

Two of the most celebrated innovations from the previous Government were the smoking ban and the plastic bag tax, both of which originally came from the citizens' sector. However, legislators enabled them to become such successful nationwide innovations.

There are an unbelievable amount of solutions around. My question is what are the things for which Senators will be able to legislate from the solutions that exist within Ashoka's portfolio and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland's portfolio? What will this Government's legacy be to match the smoking ban? I would hope it will be easy to emulate that. There is a potential partnership between social entrepreneurs and Members of the Oireachtas because, to an extent, this is a closed shop. For a social entrepreneur to have a champion within the Oireachtas could have huge value. I would like to discuss that a bit more later on.

Ms Caroline Casey:

I wish to thank the committee for holding this session. I apologise for being late, but I am a social entrepreneur and I was speaking at a sponsorship conference because I am chasing money.

I have been asked to tell the committee about our work and some of the key changes that we would like to see happening. There was a great quote from the Minister of State with responsibility for disability in Haiti recently. He said that in rebuilding Haiti, we cannot ignore the tiniest particle of intelligence or the smallest particle of potential.

What he is saying is that for us to rebuild Haiti, we need to have the contribution and power of every individual released. Kanchi's mission is to unleash the power of the 1 billion people in the world with a disability. We have over 400,000 people with disabilities living in Ireland and that figure is growing consistently. Kanchi's solution for this is business. It has been critical in driving solutions across a myriad of social issues but, oddly, it has not engaged in the issue around disability. One of the key problems, one with which the Government would agree, is that disability has been framed as something of need, sympathy and charity, as well as been medically model-based. Actually, when one looks at the opportunity from a business perspective of engaging these people as consumers, talents, members of the community and our market, we can reframe that thinking. We still have a situation where the employment figures are tiny of those with disabilities who want and are able to work. We have never been able to manage a switch from that because of the way we are framed.

As business is pervasive in all of our society, Kanchi believes that if we can change the thinking and behaviours of business, then society will become more inclusive. Essentially, we are trying to create a global business movement, beginning in Ireland, of inclusive business. We are looking at the global spending power of the disability community, its contribution and talent, and of retaining people who acquire disabilities in organisations that have already invested in them. It must be remembered that 85% of people acquire a disability during their working lifetime. We are looking at how we market and create reputation around our companies. Essentially, what Kanchi has done has been to bring in one of the greatest catalysts for change and merged leadership from business, media and government in a multi-stakeholder approach to reframe this. We have created models and methodologies which are simple for business to use, and which create mass awareness around the economic case for people with disabilities in business, and which really engender leadership.

One of our most significant programmes to date is the O2 Ability Awards programme. It was sponsored by O2 and was run for four years in Ireland. The results from it saw it touch 22% of the working population. Up to 67% of the companies we work with through independent research have evidence to prove that they started to change their practices, policies and procedures. They began to serve people with disabilities as customers as well as employing them. When I started this off, people thought I was insane, so I certainly did not tell them I wanted to take it global. A great piece of silver lining happened when Telefonica bought O2. The president of Telefonica said he wanted to replicate the awards in Spain. In 2008, we did a unique and distinct social franchise - the very first social franchise out of Ireland - where Telefonica paid a significant amount of money to license the ability awards in Spain. We have just finished the second cycle of the ability awards there. The Queen of Spain was the ambassador and chair of it and we reached 67 million people in our campaign. We had over 450 entries from the corporate world. This form of engagement is unheard of. What is more exciting is that we are creating leadership from a multi-stakeholder group, case studies which can be replicated and role models that can be emulated, and we are beginning a massive conversation that reframes disability. We want to bring the ability awards programme to ten countries in five years. That is ten Heads of State and 1,000 ability companies, and that will be the trigger point for where one creates a movement.

The reason I am in this position is that I was the first Irish Ashoka fellow in 2006. Ashoka helped us dream of bringing this idea and making it a systems changer across the world. Without Ashoka, I could not have done that, not because I did not have the vision but because I needed the expertise and it gave us that beginning funding which was critical.

We are at this point where we have this extraordinary opportunity for change. However, I got a telephone call two days ago which threatens the future of my business. We are growing the ability awards programme across the world, bringing it to Brazil, Germany, Sweden and Austria in the next year. We also have the Kanchi Network in Ireland, which is a chamber of commerce-based model which engages with 20 key businesses and chief executive officers in an area where nobody has engaged before. One of the key points that Ms Deirdre Mortell spoke about is that we do not have growth capital. If I were running a business right now, I would sell the shares because I have a track record, an open market and know what works. However, I cannot get funding for Kanchi. Here we are with one of the most extraordinary opportunities for change and this company has everything it needs to go but it does not have capital. We need risk capital and scaling capital in this sector. We are so good at funding people at the beginning, then they become successful and then we seem to just jump off a cliff. I ask Members to find a way for securing risky growth capital.

We need to be very careful not to be personality leadership driven but system leadership driven. Due to this country being small, I think we are so much about the personality, which weakens our business. That is why I have decided to step down as chief executive officer of Kanchi, a hard thing to do, but it was affecting our business because people wanted to give Caroline, the blind girl, money. The business is so solid that we need to take it away from personality and invest in the business solution.

I would also like if we were more cognisant of whom we are funding. The Kanchi Network has engaged with 20 chief executive officers but we are seeing funding of new projects which Kanchi could help. Where is that money coming from? Are we double-funding? Should we start looking to social entrepreneurs first before we start refunding or recreating the wheel? Can we please map our sector? I believe there are great opportunities for mergers that could make us more powerful. We have so little cash that there must be a way for us to join people together in a far more powerful way.

Organisations such as Ashoka and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland are important when one is beginning. Kanchi never had funding from a foundation. Initially, when we set up the ability awards programme, we had Government funding which, subsequently and understandably, had to be removed. Our engagement simply relies on business. We have had to turn our business into a social business to avoid the fund-raising trap which exists to date.

I have just come from a conference on global disability in Vienna where Senator Conway was with me. Ireland was extraordinarily represented at it. Ireland shone at this. We are the innovators. We have extraordinary interpersonal skills. We have something that we should really capture. If anyone had seen our participation at this conference, one would know we have something powerful on which we need to expand and invest in our creators and innovators.

I now employ a group of 14 people. As the ability awards grow and if I can get out of our fund-raising problem, we will be trebling that employment. One of our employees, Amie Fitzpatrick, who is legally blind or visually impaired, has just received a place on the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland wave change programme. She is 22 years old and thought she would never get through school. She got through school because of the work we did with her. She is now a wave changer participant and wants to look at the transparency of legislation. That shows the legacy of special entrepreneurship.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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We have a very captive audience. We will move on to Mr. James Whelton of CoderDojo. I will be obliged to give him ten minutes as well.

Mr. James Whelton:

I was thinking more I had about 15 seconds at this point. It is very difficult to follow Ms Casey but I will try my best.

I am before the committee as a product of both Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka.

My career as a social entrepreneur is now about two years in the making. My background is I am a 20 year old who came through the usual system of primary school and secondary school, but decided to not go to college, Instead, I opted for a movement that I started with a guy called Mr. Bill Liao in Cork called CoderDojo. Essentially, this grew out of the frustration of being a young person who was not good at guitar or sport and was not good academically, but whose identity was computers in which there was no outlet.

It is quite weird being a social entrepreneur as a young person because the majority of my peers opted for college and there is still that sense of doom and gloom with everybody in my age group. Thankfully, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka gave me great assistance at the start and really brought me to where I needed to be to make CoderDojo into an organisation that operates in 22 countries and has over 180 Dojos which today teach over 10,000 children around the world how to code. Essentially, they showed me that social entrepreneurship was a viable path and gave me considerable support in funding, planning, introductions and so much more.

CoderDojo has always taken the grassroots approach. Initially, we saw that the Government would be more of a hindrance than a benefit starting off and we opted to go directly to the teachers to avoid the Department of Education and Skills and collaborate with organisations such as the GAA and universities.

CoderDojo is addressing the skills gap in that it is a network of free programming clubs that teaches children aged seven to 17 how to programme and is completely free and volunteer driven. It has several aspects that address the social side providing an identity for these young people.

As a society, we are moving more towards this age of the introduction of Bills, particularly in the United States, such as Children's Internet Protection Act, CIPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA, and PROTECT IP Act, PIPA. We are seeing many measures that challenge our digital rights and digital freedoms and as a society, it is important that we have the technical prowess to be able to recognise the danger of these and address them in a fitting manner. CoderDojo, in training a generation of young people in programming and being more adept to technology, allows them to recognise these matters.

Obviously, there is the matter of bridging the educational gap in programming and filling this void that is not being addressed in the schools at present, or that there is not even sufficient information being given in schools. If a person wants to continue a career path in programming, web design or whatever, the increasingly rare breed of career guidance teachers are unable to give sufficient information on this.

On the technological side, it is a pretty amazing idea to think, if a young person has the ability to programme but continues a career in law or government, or in medicine, the person can use his or her technical ability to build something that could revolutionise the system. There is also the economic side. There is a skills shortage. An increasing amount of companies are coming to Ireland because this is an English-speaking country, the corporation tax, etc., but are unable to find the talent to fill these roles, and universities are not pumping out graduates fast enough or at a high enough level for them to be adapted straight away. CoderDojo is addressing these various aspects. With a core value system of keeping everything free, helping each other and being altruistic, we are cultivating this next generation of creators in the correct fashion.

Really, it is the community that is driving this forward, self-selecting people from all over Ireland, and, indeed, the world, who are stepping forward to teach these young people and to facilitate these sessions taking place. The involvement of companies such as Twitter, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, who have recognised CoderDojo as something that was born out of Cork, means they adopting it and bringing it into their offices. Going even further, CoderDojos have been run here in Leinster House on its birthday, in the European Parliament, in the Scottish Parliament and, hopefully, soon in the House of Lords. Indeed, we are working on the White House. Something that was born in Cork is truly blossoming into an international movement through the power of its community, but also with the help of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka.

I am not really sure what to ask. I will probably get into trouble here. I will not pretend to know anything that I do not. I am 20. I am still silly by definition. I have got four years until I have to grow up. I will suggest that the discussions continue with the, dare I say it, older and wiser ones in this room.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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Easy, easy.

Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)
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Wiser is fine.

Mr. James Whelton:

From what I have seen from my generation, I would say most definitely that there is still that hanging air of doom and gloom and a feeling that young people are starting to get frustrated at the status quo and are taking action. Young people are trapped in the structure that one must go to college and take the safe career of being a lawyer, doctor, etc. We all see that those markets are saturated, that there are graduates with masters degrees who are unable to find work. This idea of being confined to the system and a victim of conformity is doing a great deal of damage in Ireland. I would suggest that we must show that - the teachers will hate me - not going to college is not the end of the world and young people must see that it is possible to become empowered, step forward and drive major change.

I understand the Government's hands are tied. It is a very tough time. I would say that the Government has a major ability to act as a platform to showcase and facilitate many of these movements, particularly as there have been outstanding people in government. Mr. Seán Kelly MEP, brought CoderDojo to the European Parliament and ran it there with children from the various CoderDojo clubs from all over Europe, congregating and programming in the European Parliament. This opened up so many new leads, such as the House of Lords. We are rolling out over Belgium soon. I refer to those such as the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputy Ciarán Cannon, who has been instrumental in spreading CoderDojo in his area and also running it in Leinster House. I implore more politicians to step forward, be genuine and passionate about this and try to spread it in their areas, but take genuine interest in these matters, or even, instead of formalised talks, merely meet for coffee. I invite any of the Senators to come over and play playstation with me and my friends and we will talk about changing the education system. I would ask them to continue the conversation.

In all respects, social entrepreneurship in Ireland is a revolution in the grand scheme of things and I have seen that revolutions can be more powerful than evolution. I would suggest that we continue to keep our ear to the ground to get more young people empowered to break them out of the chains of normality and get them to step up and take action, and continue the conversations with the older and wiser.

Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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I am interested to know from the panel whether there are some social entrepreneurs working in the area of alcohol misuse. Recently, Mr. Des Bishop has been something of a social entrepreneur with his comedy. The stuff that has come up in that programme, and our image abroad, is no laughing matter. I would be interested to hear any ideas on which those in that area are working. I would certainly be willing to champion it. Sometimes it feels that it might be easier to get things done from outside of Government. I know that sounds ridiculous, but Government is somewhat restrained or confined in what it can do.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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Senator Noone is correct.

Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)
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It is all Fianna Fáil's fault.

Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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Of course, it is all Fianna Fáil's fault, but, seriously, it is something about which one laughs and jokes. I get slagged for being a bore for raising the issue all the time. However, it is a serious issue. We really need to take an urgent approach to the misuse of alcohol and its cost to the country. I hope that, from outside of Government, they might be able to help us with the ideas of those working on it and perhaps provide a different perspective. I would be interested in their comments in that regard.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I must take the members of the committee first. I noted interest from Senators Daly, O'Keeffe and O'Donnell but I ask them to indicate to whom the questions are directed if possible.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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My question is directed to everybody. I thank them for their presentation. Ireland is very much an individual-based society and the leading person, whether in politics or in social entrepreneurship, is very much identified with the organisation.

It is a great sign that Ms Casey is stepping down in the interest of allowing the organisation to outlast and grow beyond her.

Some of the speakers touched on the issue of education and lobbying in their respective areas. It is amazing that our education system does not factor in what the witnesses are striving to achieve, whether that involves women in politics, social entrepreneurship or volunteering. We recently met a group of students and their teachers for whom civil, social and political education will be confined to one hour per week. These matters are important to students' futures but our education system teaches people how to make a living rather than how to live their lives. Have the witnesses lobbied coherently for the development of active citizenship as a subject on the curriculum? I understand they have worked with 136 schools but it should be part of the curriculum for every school. If what the witnesses are doing was added to the curriculum we would have a much better education system.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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The Senator's point is well made. We will have to be brief if everybody is to get the opportunity to ask questions. If all Senators' questions are answered directly problems may arise later on because I will be leaving at 3 p.m. at the latest.

Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)
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I thank the Chair and commend the witnesses on their enormous enthusiasm and energy. Ms Casey spoke about the importance of mapping the sector. Is she speaking about starting from scratch or has anything been done already? It may be of some benefit to Mr. Whelton to know that in conjunction with IT Sligo I am working with parents on a project on the STEM subjects. This project was inspired by CoderDojo and I had identified a gap that existed in regard to parents. He spoke about the lack of computer skills. Sometimes parents do not know what is going on with their young people, and this is the gap I am trying to fill at a local level.

One of my daughters attended a CoderDojo session in Sligo and found it a bit of a boy experience. While it may have provided opportunities to meet boys, that is not the reason she attended it.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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Are you sure?

Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)
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I am not sure. Girls need a bit of encouragement. They are just as smart in these matters but they often feel it is a boy thing.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses. One can get far more done outside of politics - I am a rookie to this House - than one can inside for good reasons.

I was impressed by all the witness but I was very impressed by Ms Casey. Why is she leaving? I do not believe people follow systems. They follow the Ghandis, the Martin Luther Kings, the Helen Kellers, the Larry Pages and the Bill Gates. There is nothing wrong with a wonderful and dynamic personality when one is able to express oneself to an organisation. We need people like Ms Casey. The idea of amalgamating into a system is rubbish. People follow those who are generous enough to make the system better than themselves. It would be a disastrous loss were Ms Casey to step down. How much funding does she need to keep going, immediately and over the next five years? I think she should enter politics.

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I will address Senator Daly's questions on education. When we first started Roots of Empathy we demonstrated it in a school in Killinarden in Tallaght. The demonstration was attended by 30 key stakeholders from all sectors but the only negative voice was that of the Department of Education and Skills. It did not want to see the programme happen, which only emboldened us to ensure it did. Part of the challenge for the Department was that by endorsing the programme it would have to make it available to all schools. It is ridiculous that it cannot simply pilot the programme in a smaller context.

Tom Collins, who was then chairman of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, was also involved in the Ashoka network. It became clear that the curriculum is cluttered and pressurised. My mother is a primary school principal. The system is good at adding new subjects - we are partly to blame for that with Roots of Empathy and other initiatives - but it takes real courage to remove subjects. The problem is that we keep adding to the curriculum when we should be starting from scratch to identify the skills our children need for the 21st century. The skillset they need is totally different from the one we learned but if they do not get these new skills, they will not be players in society as it evolves. The rate of change is so fast that unless they have certain critical skills they will not be players. We need to take a bottom-up approach.

We have started at university level by cultivating change making campuses. DCU is our first change making campus. Our next step will be cultivating change making schools. We will identify ten schools at first to see if we can cultivate a culture of change making in primary and secondary schools as a demonstration of what is possible for the rest of the education system.

Mr. James Whelton:

I endured the product of the Department of Education and Skills for the majority of my life to date. I was not mentally ready to go near it again. Many teachers and principals in today's educational system remain passionate about education and are stepping forward in CoderDojos. We have opened up to teachers who want to learn how to code and observe our teaching style. We found that a collaborative environment, with children helping each other, more project orientation and an emphasis on fun rather than delivering computer science education, fosters a better and faster learning outcome. Going through the Department for real change in a short amount of time is the wrong approach. I recently spoke about this at the Irish Primary Principals' Network conference. One will waste one's time dealing with the Department as a whole not because it is full of time wasters but because not everyone will be interested. It is important to find the self-selecting and passionate teachers who will champion change. Their enthusiasm is infectious. In achieving change in education over a short period, the grassroots level is most effective in Ireland. It is a matter of identifying these characters and working with them.

The question of gender imbalance in coding is a big issue in technology in general. It is regularly acknowledged at conferences that only between 7% and 9% of all programmers are female. People are scratching their heads about it. A number of initiatives have been attempted around the world, such as female only programming sessions to attract more women over the age of 18 into programming and Black Girls Code, which is a San Francisco based programme aimed at getting underprivileged African American girls into coding. We have seen in CoderDojo that for some reason programming attracts more males than females.

This is reflected in a lot of sessions. However, between 20% and 40% are female, which given the figure for females involved in the industry, is quite good to see. We are seeing more females in programming sessions and classes in respect of the industry. In several locations we see a 50:50 split if not more females in sessions, more so abroad for some reason. New York, for example, has more females than males. I cannot talk as a girl and have no future plans to become one. I am still bemused as ever.

Lorraine Higgins (Labour)
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Never say never.

Mr. James Whelton:

However, it is something we have seen and identified. Some people have run female-specific sessions. Overall our ratios are quite good, but we are looking at what attracts girls to programming and how we can reach out to them. They may not be as interested in certain matters. Again it is very difficult for me to comment as a male. It is something we acknowledge and we are making strides in it.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Ms Casey is next to pick up the slack.

Ms Caroline Casey:

I am glad Mr. Whelton is not a girl.

Mr. James Whelton:

Me too, or not, or whatever.

Ms Caroline Casey:

I wish to start with the issue of alcohol addiction, something I am personally very invested in understanding and seeing. There is a lot of entrepreneurship around that; it is just that we do not see it in such a high-level way. Ms Frances Black is certainly worth investigating and supporting. She has done considerable work and has been connected to the Rutland Centre. I have great respect for the work she is doing. Addiction and alcohol addiction work under what we call the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. One of the key problems is for people who have had addiction issues and getting them into work and getting them recognised as valuable to the economy. So they would certainly fall under the work we do.

On the education issue, I heard Mr. Whelton speak, as I have heard him many times, about the sense of not fitting in and not doing it all the right way. There is a really important need. As far as I am concerned Mr. Whelton should speak at every school because it is about role modelling. It is critical for people to understand that there is a different way to do things. I feel there is something that one hugely has to offer. I want to add to Mr. O'Hara's point that Ashoka University is looking at building change-maker campuses at third level. We have a great change-maker back here, Sarah, and we are looking to meet all the deans of all the universities. We would love any connections.

Regarding the conversation on mapping, there has been mapping of the not-for-profit sector. There have been two big initiatives on that and one of the things we have seen come out of that is GuideStar so that we look at organisations. Mr. Seán Coughlan gave me reference to two particular reports: the centre for non-profit management - the TCD report, and the Patricia Quinn report, the Irish non-profit knowledge exchange database. So there has been mapping in the not-for-profit sector. Where I am specifically coming from, which is really important, connected to funding are the sectors in which we operate. Within the disability sector there are over 800 organisations in this tiny population. I would like to see the disability sector mapped to see where there is overlap of mission, purpose and funding. The National Disability Authority is perfectly placed to do that and we could achieve a huge saving. Ms Deirdre Mortell said it better than anybody. Value for money is not about being cheaper; it is about value for impact.

I would be a dreadful politician - I am afraid I cannot keep my mouth shut and I do not have a tough enough skin. I am respectful of everybody who serves in politics. It is easy to be critical of politicians, but I do not believe I am hard enough for it. Why am I leaving and is it a shame and a crime? It is not a shame and a crime. I am not leaving; I am not emigrating; and I am not putting on a big cape and going away. I am taking a different role within the organisation. I will be an adviser to Kanchi. It is very important that I remain strategically from a mission perspective. I choose not to sit on the board because if I want the leadership within the organisation I need to be mature enough to step away from some of the control issues that exist. I feel very strongly about the issue of cult of a founder, both of businesses and social entrepreneurship. I will always remain here. I am very passionate about the topic, but I feel we have great leadership within Kanchi that I would like to see grow.

I was asked how much we need. Unfortunately Kanchi is a system-changing organisation. Somebody recently asked my why we make it so difficult for ourselves and could we not just sell cheap wheelchairs. Why should we give people wheelchairs if they cannot get into a building and why let them into a building if they do not have money to spend? I passionately believe we need to change the system and we need business, media and Government leadership to do that. Unfortunately we have never benefited from what is the natural charitable funding. With the help of Ashoka and SEI in looking at breaking fundraising traps, we should be financially sustainable. As the ability awards scheme goes around the world - we have a licensing model - it feeds money back into a profit base. We currently need €220,000 to survive in this year, €180,000 to survive next year and €100,000 to survive the following year. We need approximately €500,000 over a three-year period and then we will not need any more. It is not an easy time to ask for that.

Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)
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I ask Ms Casey to repeat that.

Ms Caroline Casey:

It is €500,000 over the next three years - €220,000 this year, €180,000 next year and €100,000 in the final year. We will then never need any other money because we already have a business model. I am not a victim and I am not whingeing - I am just saying that is the current state. Further to Deirdre's point, it is growth capital. If I had a business I could give my shares - I do not.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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This has been a wonderful morning for all of us present. I congratulate the witnesses on putting this together. I know all three of them as I have met them previously. I remember that wonderful day in Dublin Castle March with Paul O'Hara. Senator Healy Eames was one of those present with me. I got to know Ms Casey many years ago with the ability awards. I got to know Mr. Whelton at a very interesting event in Tralee for young entrepreneurs aged 15 or 16, at which he spoke.

Ms Casey raised the question of funding. I was in Estonia a few years ago and was very impressed by the funding system there, which is called self-bank, and a similar one in Britain called Zopa through which much money has been raised. This is what is called crowd funding. Has anybody experimented that here? A very large number of people put a very small amount of money - perhaps only €10 - into it. In the case of Estonia, the bank thus formed is able to give that money to the good cause. People have an ownership of it and get a feel for it. Has anybody done anything like that here? Is it successful? Can we do something to make it more successful in future?

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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I thank the three witnesses for attending and for being so inspirational. I agree with Mr. O'Hara about the whole curriculum development process. We need to consider what we need for our young people for the future besides just piling stuff on top of what is already there. I was very impressed with what he had to say about JUMP math. I presume the Canadian teacher trainers will come to Ireland. Will they work with teachers other than those in the pilot schools? He said that Harvard now has more social entrepreneurship courses than finance courses. Do any Irish third level institutions run social entrepreneurship courses?

As always Ms Casey was highly impressive and inspirational. She spoke about mergers and I agree that we are in times with minimal financial resources. A particular group might be able to benefit from another group without knowing it. Where does one go - perhaps Ashoka or Social Entrepreneurs Ireland - to find a database of projects perhaps that could help each other? We should be about sharing resources and minimising cash need, etc., and learning from all that knowledge.

I thank Mr. Whelton for being here. He brought a positive side to the Playstation. I have a son at home who would probably be on it all the time if I did not send him to school. I know Mr. Whelton is a really good model but I still cannot risk that. I am doing my best to set up a CoderDojo in Oranmore but am having difficulty getting enough IT-savvy volunteers to give up their time on a Saturday morning. I have two people but I need more. I know that perhaps I have not put enough into it yet but is there anything Mr. Whelton can say that can help me?

Mr. Whelton should not worry about making everything school-based because when something becomes school-based, it sometimes gets lost. The magic is where schools are begging for it so it is very important that we let things fly first. I am looking to set up a CoderDojo in Oranmore on a voluntary basis yet I have managed to get it into the school and nobody really knows about it once it is in the school.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Sometimes I give out to Senator Healy Eames but she has been very instrumental in driving this particular model for today's programme. She pestered me for a long time but we are here now. There is some gratitude towards her. I am just the Chairman. I call Senator Conway. I do not want a full rundown of what happened in Vienna but I will allow the Senator to ask questions.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I will have to give that to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. I ask the Chairman not to give out to me because he regularly does so. I have a very short commentary to make. With regard to Ms Casey, it is wonderful that the first social entrepreneur to become an Ashoka fellow happens to be a person with a disability from Ireland who has ability and leadership qualities. I can say with my hand on my heart that the disability community in Ireland is extraordinarily proud of what Ms Casey has achieved. She is not just a national leader; she is a world leader. To see her in Vienna and the respect she receives from people throughout the world proves that Ireland can set best international practice. We do not need to be told or shown what best practice is. We have the ability to set it. We have the talent and skill set here to do that. I wanted to put that on the record of Seanad Éireann for Ms Casey who I consider a friend. She would be excellent in politics because I cannot keep my mouth shut either. They will tell her that here.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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That is why I have to keep an eye on the Senator.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I believe the way to break down barriers and facilitate people with disabilities to play an active part is through technology. I am sure there are many social entrepreneurs developing technology to make it more accessible and to make the employment of people with disabilities more amenable. Could the delegation make a quick comment on that? I have heard Mr. O'Hara speaking before but could he do so again for the benefit of others here?

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

I will take a few of the questions. The crowd funding movement is at a very early stage but has enormous potential. It has become part of a jobs Act in the US to legislate for it in the for-profit world. Matt Flannery is one of our Ashoka fellows who was part of Change Nation and the founder of Kiva, which is one of the pioneers of the microfinance movement. Kiva enables people to make small loans to start-up companies. This initially happened in Africa but it is now doing it in the US. Mr. Flannery is of Irish extraction and is based in San Francisco but is originally from outside Loughrea. He is committed to having Kiva's Europe headquarters based out of Dublin. It will be a few years before we see a flow of money to small enterprises in Ireland and across Europe using that platform.
There are a few platforms on the social entrepreneur side. GlobalGiving grew out of the World Bank and allows social entrepreneurs to put their projects up there to crowd fund through. Again, this is primarily focused on the developing world but anybody can do it. We are partnered with Indiegogo, which is the biggest privately funded crowd funding platform. A number of the Change Nation initiatives will be piloted to see if we can raise some seed capital through that. We have funded the cultural sector which is being led by the Business to Arts team, which comprises Stuart McLaughlin et al and has been a great success. It seems to be successful for projects around the €5,000 range, which encompass launching a CD or putting on a play. That has been a great example of success in Ireland. This is a great way to leverage the diaspora with a crowd funding platform so that people can give to schools their great great grandfathers went to or the village their people came from. This is a piece of technology that would enable that. There is enormous growth potential in crowd funding for all sectors - social and economic.

Teacher training is just with the teachers of the pilot schools in the initial phase but, ultimately, we want to be working with St. Patrick's College and having this included as part of training for all teachers. My understanding is that there will be 40 pilot schools, 20 of which will have the JUMP Math programme and 20 of which will be regular pilot schools to act as a comparison.

Social entrepreneurship courses are emerging at third level. Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University have embedded social entrepreneurship in a number of their courses. University College Dublin had it initially in the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and has extended it to the Quinn School of Business. NUI Galway is looking at it while the business and humanities group across the institutes of technology invited me to speak today, which was the clash. That will happen in a few months so they are looking at how they can bring social entrepreneurship into their curricula. It is at a reasonably early stage. There is significant potential but also considerable demand. Mr. Coughlan can probably build on that.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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Is it just a module in current courses?

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

It is typically a module so there would be a stream on social entrepreneurship within a master's degree or a bachelor of commerce. We have not quite got to the stage where there is a master's degree or MBA in social entrepreneurship but I hope that would come in time. Mr. Coughlan can pick up on that later.

Ms Caroline Casey:

I do not know where Senator Quinn is and wish I could see him.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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I am over here.

Ms Caroline Casey:

I acknowledge everything Senator Quinn has done for us on a leadership piece. His business was one of our leading companies around the inclusive business model. His leadership attracted further leadership, which is very important and shows the need for role modelling and leadership so I thank him personally.

In respect of crowd sourcing, Mr. O'Hara referred to organisations like Kanchi and other bigger organisations. It is the projects that are much smaller. Stuart McLaughlin's fundit.ie or mycharity.ie are fantastic but changing work in big systems is more difficult from a crowd sourcing perspective for organisations like us.

I thank Senator Conway for his very kind words. I would like to point out that Mr. Whelton is named as one of Forbes' movers and shakers under 30 so let us note that there is a global leader sitting right beside us. In respect of mergers, while the Government is looking at new types of initiatives to fund, it should go to SEI and Ashoka and see what is already going on out there before it funds them. We heard of a new initiative which is pretty much the same as one of our initiatives. We were more than happy to share and could have reduced those costs and ensured the learning was passed on. The Government needs to go to these types of organisations and see what is happening before it funds. A market analysis needs to be carried out prior to funding.

Mr. James Whelton:

In respect of volunteers, I am happy to discuss things further afterwards. There is a lack of skilled IT professionals in certain areas who can volunteer. People with technical skills and programmers would often come to the cities which again relates to the global issue of depopulation. While starting with a small number of technical volunteers, one of the core beliefs is getting kids to teach other kids. Once a kid gets to a sufficient level of knowledge and ability, he or she will teach the other kids in his or her club, which will create an ever-growing cycle.

We are seeing this in Cork where there are 14 year olds teaching 12 year olds. It has become a great system and frees up the time of volunteers to help other bases to set up. It is an issue we have noted. We are trying to address areas that do not have volunteers or which have a large amounts of volunteers. As we are getting ready to move into Africa to start teaching in developing economies, we have been examining the delivering of content and help on Skype, etc., and looking at the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The children have a programme. As their economies develop, they will have a technological boom from which they will have the skills to benefit. We are considering how to deliver content and provide for teaching in remote areas to spawn similar clubs there. I will also be happy to speak with Senators afterwards.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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Rather than lose momentum - we only have one group left - I am prepared to drive on, if that is acceptable to members. Is that agreed? Agreed. I have already administered the warning to the next group of delegates.

Mr. Seán Coughlan:

I thank the Seanad for giving us the opportunity to address it today. We have heard many powerful stories of individual entrepreneurs and seen examples. We have heard about the context in which social entrepreneurship occurs within Ireland and internationally. We have heard about Ashoka, the originator of the social entrepreneurship movement, and One Foundation which has been the stimulus for bringing it to Ireland. We are Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and our job is to support social entrepreneurs. Having everyone as a social entrepreneur would be a disaster and we do not want that. There are lots of skills, talents and contributions to society and the country. Just as we do not want every single person to be a business entrepreneur, though a significant incidence is necessary, we do not want everyone to work within a larger corporate environment or be in the arts. We want people in all of these sectors. That is critical. While we do not want everyone to be a social entrepreneur, we want and need some to do it. One of the themes to emerge in the last couple of hours of discussion has been that social entrepreneurs play a critical role in developing society and moving it forward.

Ms Deirdre Mortell and Mr. Paul O'Hara referred to social entrepreneurs as the inspiration for change-making among people in general. Social Entrepreneurs Ireland started in 2004. We have talked about the great initiative, Change Nation, which was run by Ashoka and saw 50 solutions from abroad. I am not a very complicated person and think of Change Nation as the IDA of social entrepreneurship. Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka - through its Irish fellows - are more akin to Enterprise Ireland. The indigenous talent is really strong. We have fantastic individuals with powerful ideas who are changing Ireland daily. To realise that potential and be able to find solutions to the entrenched environmental and social challenges we face, we must be able to support these individuals and develop their ideas. That is where Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka come in. We fund early stage projects.

We have spoken a great deal about the necessity for both growth capital and early stage investment. Our view is that money in and of itself is not the solution. While it is an important part of the solution, if we write a cheque and walk away, the money will not be used very effectively. We can see the analogies in the commercial sector. Where private or State agencies invest in early stage commercial entrepreneurs, they do not simply write a cheque and disappear for a year before coming back to ask, "What are you doing?" A set of training and mentoring activities is built up around these entrepreneurs to ensure they are effective and help to grow their organisations. That is the job of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland which runs an awards programme. On Monday of this week we closed our call for applications for this year. We have €500,000 in direct funding that we are going to disburse this year to eight social entrepreneurs and their projects. At the top level, we will invest €130,000 in three early stage projects. Typically, we are the first funder into these organisations. We will invest €22,000 in five of the projects. On top of that financial investment, we build an intense programme of training and support to help social entrepreneurs move their projects forward. We discussed social entrepreneurs working on alcohol issues and one of the people referred to was Ms Frances Black. We were the first funder of her RISE foundation. With our support, RISE has extended its reach to people nationally. Frances Black is not in attendance because she is on a fund-raising trip to the United States of America which we financed to have the necessary growth capital which her organisation is struggling to find to continue to grow and expand.

We know that this stuff works. We see internationally from the statistics of the Ashoka network that there are 3,000 social entrepreneurs. It is a fantastic resource to be able to look at to see what works and what does not. We can also see it in Ireland. In the past seven years we have invested in 161 social entrepreneurs. We have raised and written cheques for more than €4.9 million for their projects and have not received or sought any State funding. It is all money that has been raised privately. Every year we examine the impact our social entrepreneurs have. Another question that arose was how this stuff was measured. Those 161 social entrepreneurs have had a direct impact on more than 200,000 lives in Ireland. They do not just change lives, they contribute to the real economy. There is a win on all fronts. They have created over 800 employment opportunities in full-time, part-time and contract work within their organisations. We see fantastic leverage also. People want to invest in success. Having Ashoka or Social Entrepreneurs Ireland behind someone gives him or her credibility. In the past 12 months every social entrepreneur in whom we have invested has been able to raise for every euro from us an average of €10.83 for his or her project. While he or she would raise some of that money anyway, the programme of support we provide is critical to upskill and build capacity which makes him or her much more effective at his or her job. Making him or her more effective is not the end goal but the impact he or she will have on real people's lives. The Seanad committee will hear from one other social entrepreneur when I finish. The impact is real and tangible.

We are very interested in supporting individual projects. Our success is entirely based on the success of our social entrepreneurs. We only exist to help to make their projects happen. While we need to get behind individual projects, we must also create an environment that will allow the sector to grow and thrive and realise its potential. That is critical. Money is an important element of creating that environment, but it is not the only one. We have talked about mergers and acquisitions and replication and duplication in the sector. It is encouraging that a large group of organisations operating in the social enterprise space have coalesced to form a task force - the social enterprise and entrepreneurship task force. We do not want to compete with each other for attention or have a purely narrow self-interested organisational focus in our conversations. We want to build a sector that will include more people like Mr. James Whelton, Ms Caroline Casey and Ms Frances Black. We want to see the sector grow and thrive. There is great potential and we are not only looking for the Government to support us.

We want to see that sector growing. There is huge potential because not only are we looking to Government to support us but to the corporate sector. As Deirdre said there has been a major withdrawal of philanthropic funding following the exit of the One Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies. The corporate sector will not replace that money but the amount it gives in Ireland is way below average for a developed country. Corporates by and large want to contribute but they need to find how to do that in a way that makes sense for them. One of the interesting things about social entrepreneurship is that it speaks their language. We are talking about entrepreneurs and they understand that. Social entrepreneurship can provide a very interesting bridge between the social and not-for-profit sectors and supporters of Ashoka and our organisation are beginning to build that.

Many exciting things are happening but in order to realise all of this potential we need money and other things. The social enterprise and entrepreneurship task force came up with a set of specific recommendations. These are real, tangible issues that the Legislature could move forward. I will outline a couple which are specific, realisable and do not require budget allocations. The first is that we need the Government to focus specifically on this sector. We want there to be a Minister of State with responsibility for social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. This is not a matter of finding money but of developing policies to create the environment that allows the social entrepreneurs to grow and thrive. Our view is that the most logical place for that to happen is within the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation because that is its role. There is a conversation in government about where that should sit. Should it sit with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or in one of the big spending Departments? This concerns entrepreneurship and enterprise and the journey that social entrepreneurs go on is the same whether they are commercial or social. The expertise and all the resources are in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We would really like to see some momentum and support to move that agenda forward.

The second recommendation is that we would like to see social entrepreneurs and enterprises getting access to State supports. We do not understand why our people cannot get access to the non-financial support provided by the county and city enterprise boards and the Enterprise Ireland mentoring schemes. Our work contributes to the real economy, creates better communities and helps vulnerable people. Why does the State not make those existing resources available to social entrepreneurs?

The third recommendation stems from the fact that regulations preclude credit unions from lending to social enterprises and entrepreneurs. That legislation should be changed because the credit unions could provide the capital and funding which is such a critical element of our work. We would also like to see community or social benefit clauses added to the State tendering process. That does not cost any money but it would use that tendering process to contribute to communities.

The last point is that we would like to see an educational environment that supports and encourages this work. There have been some encouraging developments along these lines. Social Entrepreneurs Ireland funded Educate Together to develop a teaching module on social entrepreneurship for every class from junior infants up to sixth class. Our criteria were that it had to be made freely available to every primary school teacher in the country, not just to Educate Together. Those modules exist. All we need is for the Department of Education and Skills to promote them. They are not being used enough because teachers do not know enough about them. DCU has taken a leadership role at third level by launching the first masters programme in social enterprise. It is running at the Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship which is affiliated with DCU and 40 people will soon be the first masters graduates in social enterprise in this country.

The potential is enormous. There are organisations and individual social entrepreneurs that change lives daily. Support organisations like ours and Ashoka create the environment for these people but we cannot take this journey alone. Without support we will leave potential on the table which will leave vulnerable people without the supports and solutions to problems that they might otherwise get. We need money but we also need an enabling environment. This House has a tremendous opportunity to help us and together we can move the agenda forward and get the Government to take on board some of the non-financial measures, thereby creating the potential for much greater change.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I call finally on Niamh Gallagher of Women for Election.

Ms Niamh Gallagher:

I thank the Senators for the invitation to speak here, particularly Senators Mac Conghail, Quinn and Healy Eames for organising this event. It is important for us to see our work recognised in this way and to see it finally on the political agenda.

I am here to give a flavour of some of the work that Sean has talked about. Women for Election won the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland impact award in 2011, one of its higher level awards, worth €200,000 over two years in a mixture of cash and business support. I hope I manage to communicate in my speech the value of that award. It was unbelievable and overwhelming for us to be able to step from an idea about something that we knew could and would work to actually going out and doing it. That is what Social Entrepreneurs Ireland did for us.

I know that the women in the room are familiar with Women for Election. Our organisation inspires and equips women to succeed in politics. We do that through tailored training, mentoring and support programmes for women who want to take the step from interest in politics to action. We do this because we have a vision of an Ireland with a balanced participation of women and men in political life. Michelle O'Donnell Keating, my business partner, and I really believe what Paul O'Hara said about social entrepreneurs solving big social problems. One of the biggest problems facing the country, and it has faced it for several decades, is the desperate lack of balance in our political system. That results in a lack of women's voices in this House and more seriously in the Dáil which is a failure to employ our country's talent in making decisions that matter and impact on all of us. In the Dáil 15% of elected representatives are women which means that 85% of those making decisions are men. Representation in the Seanad is better, at 30% but we are still not there. At local city and county council level the figure is 16%. We have a long way to go. Women for Election believes that by providing tailored supports we can push the figure up and bring balance into the decisions that matter.

The solution to this problem is a combination of things. We will not solve it on our own. The evidence shows that a mix of hard and soft measures will make the difference in getting more women into those roles. The hard measures are quotas. I attended a super debate in this House about the legislation on this issue that was passed in the summer. Senator Ivana Bacik and others championed it from beginning to end. It is fantastic news but any of us active in this space know that we need more than the quota to make sure that we have a long, strong and really effective change in our politics.

The soft measures are training, mentoring and support for the women who are going to stand up and put themselves on the ticket and for the women behind them.

We are discussing supporting women from interest to action. This does not mean that everyone needs to be an elected representative. It is as Mr. Coughlan stated, in that I could not imagine a more chaotic environment than one in which everyone was a social entrepreneur. Similarly, it would not be a pretty sight if every woman we met decided to run for election. Under the interest to action idea, we are supporting women to go through the political pipeline, to get active as canvassers, to become party political activists, to start considering how they could be campaign managers and to examine how their business, community and trade union skills might translate into political life so that it can be richer.

Since winning the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland award in 2011, Women for Election has run an INSPIRE one-day programme eight times around the country. It focuses on campaigns, confidence and communications, the three areas with which women told us they wanted support if they were to make the next step. Some 350 women from political and non-political backgrounds have gone through the programme. We have seen an interest from women who are leaders in community groups or run their own businesses. It is an interesting mix of people.

This year we will launch our three day campaign school, EQUIP, the first campaign school at this level in Ireland. It is based on a couple of models that run in the US. It will work intensively with women who will contest the 2014 local and European elections to support them in being the best candidates they can be.

All of this contributes to the movement of women we are building around Ireland to be part of that change, but what difference will it make? Women for Election is slightly more abstract than some of the organisations traditionally associated with social entrepreneurship. We do not fit, silo-like, into education, health or environmental impact.

We have spent a great deal of time examining the evidence of what difference is made by having more women elected in those countries that have managed to reach the tipping point. There are four changes: policy, power, priority and process. In a practical sense, women tend to be more open and transparent in how they conduct politics, for example, by putting the minutes of their meetings on their websites, discussing who they meet and inviting groups not traditionally associated with politics into the political space. They have a different attitude to power, which is evident across business and communities as well, and they can focus on different priorities at times.

In terms of policy, we have traditionally stated that women are more focused on issues associated with women's equality and rights. Last night, however, Women for Election had the privilege of meeting an Australian woman who used to be a Minister in Queensland for a number of years. She discussed her experience in that Parliament, which had 36% female representation at the time, and the difference that participation made. Before being elected, all of the discussions she had heard were concerned with women's impact on issues of women's rights. When she joined the Parliament, though, she saw that women had the greatest impact on gun control. She stated that it was not a question of the four P's, process, policy, priority and power, but of perspective. Women bring an entirely different perspective to debates on every issue. This is the area in which we are working. The difference is intangible, but important. This is what Women for Election is about and is what Social Entrepreneurs Ireland recognised.

We found it difficult to make our case in the initial days of approaching Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and trying to get funding. We do not fit into a traditional charity bracket. Ms Michelle O'Donnell Keating and I believe that we are entrepreneurs and that the change we are trying to make will have a significant impact, but it cannot be measured or fit into the grant-making structures. Grants are awarded to migrant organisations or educational bodies, but Social Entrepreneurs Ireland understood the intangible difference that measures such as ours could make to Ireland. For this reason, it backed us and we won the award. I like to believe that we are delivering for Social Entrepreneurs Ireland by trying to make that change, but we will see whether that is the case in the 2014 elections and the general election that follows them.

I will build on Mr. Coughlan's point about money. Money is important, but it is not the only part of the solution. One of the most important aspects of the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland award is the combination of cash and business support. When we were starting our movement and organisation, all that we could see was our need for money so that we could give up our day jobs and focus on getting everything off the ground. Instead, the difference has been made by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, which pulled us back to focus on the milestones that it set with us, concrete business goals of operations, financial, governance and succession planning, and pushed us in terms of the strategic side and meeting our goals. If we do not meet them, our organisation will flop once the money runs out and we will have made no difference.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I thank our guests for those inspiring presentations. I am familiar with Ms Gallagher's terrific work. She was right to make a point about intangible outcomes. There will be a tangible outcome in terms of the number of women running for election in 2014. Measuring the impact of any one organisation on that outcome will be difficult, but Ms Gallagher's organisation is tackling one of the key obstacles to women's progress. All of the research that anyone involved in this area has done shows this to be the case. It is a tribute to Social Entrepreneurs Ireland that it saw the potential in Women for Election's work. I just wanted to make that comment and do not have a question for our guests.

Katherine Zappone (Independent)
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I congratulate all of the delegations on the work of One Foundation, Ashoka Ireland, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and the extraordinary entrepreneurs in attendance as well as their colleagues in the back. They have had a profound impact on me and my colleagues. A good number of Senators have attended this meeting beyond the committee's number. I am certain we will find ways to respond at various levels, be that in the form of legislation, debates or motions. I thank the delegations for the great contribution they have made today.

I wish to ask two questions, the first of which is on funding. I am aware it is not the only concern, as emphasised by all of our guests. The issue is one of growth capital, which Ms Mortell and others mentioned, and sustainability capital. Will they comment on the opportunities for systematising a way of matching growth capital between philanthropic and State money as it comes in and goes out? I was particularly intrigued by Mr. Coughlan's suggestion on a Department that would be in charge of supporting the development of social entrepreneurship, a matter we have discussed previously.

We are moving towards debating the Bill that will establish SOLAS, which will bring together the areas of further education and training. Yesterday, the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, outlined the various types of pilot funding initiatives that could be found in terms of further education and training. Do social entrepreneurs have access to this funding? Many Departments are funding sources for social enterprise. I am aware of the social innovation fund, the Flannery report and so on, but it is a question of matching growth or sustainability capital as it comes in and goes out. I would welcome comments in this regard.

My second question is on mergers. Ms Casey, Mr. Coughlan and everyone else touched on this subject. I was struck by Ms Casey's comments on a need for mapping in the disability or ability sector. Are our guests developing a template for analysing a mapping of some of the different sectors as a first step towards mergers? It could be helpful.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Coughlan and Ms Gallagher for their presentations. I agree with Mr. Coughlan that entrepreneurs get this because social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs with social goals. However, the enterprise boards do not get it. I have approached them in regard to a social enterprise. They continue to see enterprise as they always did. Would Mr. Coughlan be willing to brief them? So long as there is a narrow view of enterprise, the social impact and societal good will be lost.

It was stated that credit unions are not permitted to fund social enterprise. That is not quite true. Credit unions provide support for Leader projects. Much depends on how a project is presented. Currently, credit unions provide matching funding for Leader projects. There is an avenue therein that might be worth looking at. I would welcome the delegates' comment on whether they have any experience in this area through Leader. There is a problem in terms of Leader and the multi-annual financial framework. The next EU multi-annual financial framework is for 2014-2020. As such, existing Leader funding is probably allocated and by the time the next round is available, it will probably be 2015, which means there will be a gap of two years. Perhaps the delegates will comment on that matter. I am aware of a social enterprise requiring this funding.

I congratulate Women for Election on its award. I also congratulate Social Entrepreneurs Ireland for recognising the value of Women for Election. Ms Gallagher referred to policy, power, priorities and process. I believe women bring a difference to perspective in a way that influences those four areas. I do not and never have believed in quotas only. I support them but do not really believe in them. For women to make a difference in politics we need a cultural change. I note the proposed use of quotas to bring about that cultural change. Cultural acceptance is important.

Women for Election is doing great work around helping women trying to get into politics for the first time. What is it doing around women already in politics who are also experiencing barriers? We are all only as good as our last election.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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The next speaker is Senator Noone. I ask Members to ask questions rather than make speeches. When Members speak for four minutes and then finally ask a question, that frustrates me as Chairman.

Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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I am not sure if the Leas-Chathaoirleach is directing those remarks at me.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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No. Three quarters of the Members of this House do not know how to ask a question, which is unfortunate. They make a speech and then ask a question.

Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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I would like first to make one or two comments, which should not amount to a speech, and to then ask a couple of questions.

Social entrepreneurship and the whole concept of thinking outside the box is the reason it does not fit inside the box of civil servants and all that they are about. The duplication of function is also an issue because there is a danger that one or two organisations would be gotten rid of. Let us be honest; that is what this about.

I have a specific question in regard to procurement. I am currently involved in research of Departments' support of local business in terms of their purchase of Irish produce and services versus import of produce and services. I am trying to get around the EU laws around procurement and look at this from a social conscience aspect. I would welcome comment by the delegates on that matter.

Ms Gallagher referred to succession planning for women in politics. Did she mean that women as politicians are less likely to think of succession planning? I am also interested in the delegates' responses to Senator Healy Eames' questions. The delegates will be aware of the discussion last weekend at the constitutional convention around tokenism. There is a danger of quotas and so on leading to tokenism. It has already been said to me that I will definitely be a candidate in the next general election, not because I might be a good candidate but because more women are needed in politics. I am interested in the delegates' comment on that matter.

Terry Brennan (Fine Gael)
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My question may be a stupid one but I will ask it anyway. First, I congratulate all of the delegates on their contributions this morning. This, for me, has been a memorable day in the Seanad.

The delegates obviously derive satisfaction from what they do. Is there any fun for a young man or woman getting involved in social entrepreneurship at an early age? I recently met a young Irish man who lives in the United States and has been involved in corporate America for the best part of 20 years. He told me that the seeds of his working for himself had been sown in his mind, and that of his fellow students, 25 years ago by a national school teacher. While he had gone on to gain third level qualifications, he had been impressed most by the man who made it fun for him to learn and recognised his ability at an early age. In my view it is important to get the message into the national schools.

Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)
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I thank the delegates for their fantastic and stimulating presentations. My first question is directed to Mr. Coughlan and relates to his organisation's recommendations. I am aware his organisation has met previously with the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Has there been any indication from the Department that it is looking favourably at the recommendation that a Minister of State be given specific responsibility for this area? I believe that is where responsibility for it should rest. I am conscious of the number of jobs created in my area by social entrepreneurs. There is huge potential in this area. On the reshaping of the enterprise boards and so on, would Mr. Coughlan see that as a positive development? Does he believe opportunities will emerge from the restructured enterprise boards, which might be more forward thinking and progressive than has been the case to date?

My next question is directed to Mr. Whelton of CoderDojo. We would all like to see one in our towns, particularly towns in major areas. How is Mr. Whelton making a living? I am aware, from his many visits to Leinster House, that he is doing fantastic work.

How is he surviving? What can we do to spread the gospel of CoderDojo in our own communities?

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I will give Senator Maurice Cummins, Leader of the Seanad, an opportunity to speak. He has been very patient.

Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)
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I am delighted to have been able to listen to people as I am usually bombarded with questions for an hour every morning. It is great to have others answering questions and it has been a very enlightening few hours. The witnesses are absolutely wonderful. If they had two or three messages that we could bring to the Government, what would they be? I thank the witnesses for their comments and I enjoyed every minute of them.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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That is how a question is asked. It was very concise for which I thank the Senator. I have a question on the gender balance and focus. The party to which I belong has a new policy trying to encourage gender balance and I am sure almost all parties have the same idea. There is a practical difficulty. When I was in college there were no females in the engineering class and when I studied law, perhaps a tenth of the class were girls, with three or four of them in a class of 30 males. That has changed naturally and there are now more lady solicitors in Ireland than male solicitors. There are many female engineers and they are commonly working in councils.

Politics, as we know it, is unattractive to people. I come from Cork and I know from more than 25 years involved in politics that at the level of the town council or the county council, it is almost impossible to get women to get involved. It is a practical view. In other words, it is not an exact science. The legal, medical and engineering professions saw scarce female involvement, for various reasons, when I was in college in the early 1970s. There has been an evolution but there has been no natural development like that in Irish politics. It is not an attractive career for many reasons. The quota system can be dangerous as we could end up with people working in politics not because it is their passion rather because they are being pushed into it.

I will finish up this module. There was a kite flown by Senator Mullins at the rear.

Mr. Seán Coughlan:

I will touch on a couple of the questions. The question was asked about developments with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We have seen significant interest within the Department at a political level and we are unsure at a departmental level where things stand. It is interesting that from what we have heard, it appears we need no more than two or three civil servants within the Department to be assigned to this in order to allow it to happen. It is a sizeable Department and there is a large cadre of civil servants in it. From the outside, using two to three civil servants does not seem like a massive ask.

There are no formal developments on the political side yet but in the jobs plan a report was commissioned by Forfás to report on the potential for social enterprise around job creation. That is with the Government but it has not yet been published. That will contain a series of recommendations and we met personnel from Forfás when it drafted the report and gave our perspective, as did others on the social enterprise and entrepreneurship task force. We are hopeful that this will be largely positive and we are awaiting developments.

This leads to questions about the enterprise boards and whether we will brief them. We would jump at such a chance. If we brief the boards, it would be one conversation, but if we go with representatives of the Department, with the idea that it is part of our remit to perform such briefings, it would be a very different conversation in changing the thinking around enterprise boards. The two ideas are linked in that sense.

I may be incorrect and I am happy to be corrected but my information is that social enterprise has many legal structures but credit unions are precluded from investing in organisations with charitable status or companies limited by guarantee with no shared capital. Those are two particular legal structures. Credit unions, as far as I am aware, cannot lend to those specific types of structures and institutions. The real challenge is that the vast majority of credit unions are set up in those structures. Although there are ways in which credit unions can lend to social enterprises, the movement is probably not open to the vast majority of social enterprises, which is a challenge.

The question on mergers and acquisitions was very interesting. My day job is chief executive of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and I am also chairman of The Wheel, a national representative body for the community and voluntary sector. It is one of the organisations in the community and voluntary pillar in discussions with the Government. We have many discussions about this not just in social entrepreneurship but in the wider sector. There are challenges and we referred earlier to organisations not being personality-led. One of the challenges around mergers and acquisitions is that if the process is personality-led, a person may feel it is personal rather than the right thing to do. There are some cultural or attitude challenges around that.

We have seen some very positive examples, with one of the effects of the current economic climate being that those conversations are coming more to the fore. We had Volunteer Centres Ireland and Volunteer Ireland as an example. I know people involved in both and they have been very clear about the difference between them. Unless one ate, drank and slept volunteering, they nevertheless looked very similar from the outside. In a positive action, they merged into one organisation to promote volunteering in this country. Those sorts of example must become more common; we spoke of the importance of role models in social entrepreneurship but role models in this area would also be very beneficial. There are challenges in merging because of much organisational cost. One must work through negotiations and if we are really interested in promoting this process, it might be good to have a fund to support mergers and acquisitions. It would get people interested.

There was a question on procurement and EU laws. We must be in compliance with EU regulations. If we include social clauses in the tendering process, the likelihood is that organisations that can meet those social clauses or score highly in them are more likely to be indigenous rather than organisations outside the State. They will understand the context, and social clauses are all about local social issues. That might be a way of at least encouraging companies in competitively tendering while doing good in the world.

There is the idea of making this fun. Senators should understand from our comments that we are passionate about this process and we believe in it because we see the results. We get up every morning and look forward to going to work. We try to speak about this; we are doing it in this forum but we can also do that in the media. We must get around what we call being worthy but dull, WBD.

Change Nation, for example, was a huge event in that sense. It created energy, excitement and enthusiasm, and Paul O'Hara and Ashoka Ireland did an amazing job. The fun element comes into that category. We have to start projecting that while it is all good, it is a great journey as well. There are many very interesting organisations among young people. There is the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which the One Foundation has supported. It is doing great work in getting young people, particularly in transition year, to think about setting up their own micro businesses. There is also Young Social Innovators which was set up by Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy, one of Ireland's great social entrepreneurs. It has a 50% footprint in secondary schools throughout the country. Initiatives such as those should be encouraged.

The last issue was opportunities in terms of the State and the private sector coming together. The One Foundation has shown real leadership in this. Perhaps Deirdre would discuss it. From my perspective and from the examples I am aware of anecdotally, one of the things that One Foundation has done very successfully, along with Atlantic Philanthropies, is use that combination of private and State money on the basis of a clear strategic plan in terms of what it wants to be achieved and invest it in the performing organisations rather than the ones that are struggling, because that is where one will get results. It has been able to broker those co-investments. That brokerage function is critical to maximising the benefit we get from the investment. Does Deirdre wish to comment?

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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We will move on because we are under time pressure. If we have time, we will get to that. I have been in the Chamber since 10.20 a.m. without a break. If you like, we can break for half an hour and resume, but there will not be many Members here. There were some questions for Ms Gallagher and if there is time later, we can return to it.

Ms Niamh Gallagher:

I will respond first to Senator Healy Eames on the cultural change issue. I agree with her point about quotas. Our strong position is that quotas are part of the solution but not the entire solution. That is why we have built and structured our organisation around training, mentoring and support. We are very much focused on building a movement of women throughout the country to try to influence this change and be part of it. Part of that is the critical mass and the numbers that will start to influence the cultural shift the Senator was discussing. The other part that is important is developing our male support base. We are looking at that this year. I have met a huge number of men, both in politics and outside, who want to be part of this movement because they recognise the different perspectives and the value they add. I could see many of the men nodding when I spoke about this. While we are getting there, the Senator's point is very well made.

What we are doing for women who are elected is also an important part of it. As Social Entrepreneurs Ireland awardees, we work quite intensively on business planning. We are not trying to do everything in year one, but what we are really anxious to do in the next number of years is look at how we might work with elected women. We are focused on the next local elections in 2014 and we will support a number of women who will be candidates. We will not drop them the day they get elected. In fact, we would love to have a big session for them a couple of days after the election to try to work with them on what they are expecting. We will refer back to the Senator about that. I thank her for flagging it and I will put that down as a demand from elected representatives.

Senator Noone asked a question about succession. I was referring to Caroline's point about succession planning for social entrepreneurs. When there is a founder and if that person wishes to move on, it can be difficult for the organisation. It is one of things on which social entrepreneurs work with us.

Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
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At the weekend it was identified as something at which women are particularly poor.

Ms Niamh Gallagher:

It was interesting that the Senator made that link because we were delighted to be invited to the constitutional convention at the weekend to speak on both days. That point came from the floor and it was one with which I was not as familiar, that women do not necessarily plan for succession to their seat in the same way men do. It is something I must think about in the women's re-election piece as well.

The other point the Senator made was about tokenism. We hear that a great deal. My heart sinks when I hear it because I only ever hear it with regard to women.

Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Ms Niamh Gallagher:

I find it difficult to engage in the discussion about it. If one is really honest and looked at candidates that are run throughout the country for different geographical reasons and so forth, there are a number of token candidates. If we are going to talk about tokenism, let us look at the various reasons that tokenism exists, not just where there are female candidates. In my experience and in view of the women we have met through the programme so far, it will be very difficult to make that point at the next election. There are many women getting geared up for that election, so let us wait and see.

Senator Mullins raised the point about making a living and Senator Brennan asked if there was any fun involved. It is brilliant to get up in the morning and work on a thing one cares passionately about and on which one really wants to work. It is a huge privilege for anybody to get the opportunity to do that. However, Senator Mullins asked about making a living. That is a really important point. We make a living because Social Entrepreneurs Ireland supports us, along with the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Ireland Funds and the Equality Authority. Our programmes generate a significant proportion of our income, but not all of it. There does come a point when it stops being fun, when one is so worried about how one will make a living that one cannot bring that passion to one's work. That links back to what Deirdre was talking about earlier with regard to growth capital and building organisations that are sustainable. One does not want people such as Caroline and James, and all the other awardees, beaten down and no longer enjoying it because of those challenges.

Finally, on the point the Leas-Chathaoirleach made about trying to find the women, we hear a great deal that women are not inclined to find politics as attractive as men do. It appears to be the last bastion, in a way, of this level of imbalance. He referred to law, engineering and other areas, but politics has not caught up at the same pace as those. The report of Senator Ivana Bacik and the Oireachtas committee on women's participation in politics looks at the barriers and classifies them as the five Cs - cash, culture, child care, candidate selection and confidence. Confidence is the one that emerges a great deal with the women we have been meeting around the country. It appears that more persuasion is required to encourage women to recognise the ambition within themselves and be strong enough to declare that they can and will do it. Our experience is that with our support they become more inclined to be able to make that leap. Not only do they recognise that there is an organisation to support them, but they are in a room with 50 other women who have also started to name this ambition. One begins to see some peer support. We talked about role modelling in respect of social entrepreneurs but there have been few female role models in this space, so it was difficult for them to relate to other women.

The other aspect is a lack of good news stories. We hear a great deal about the long hours of Dáil sittings, but there are 25 women in the Dáil. Over 1,000 local, county and city council seats throughout the country are filled by women and many of those women would say it is quite a positive experience to be able to marry their family and home life with their role as a local councillor in their community. We should not just see women in politics as women in the Dáil but tell some more of those other stories.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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To conclude, do you wish to say a final word, Ms Mortell?

Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)
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Perhaps she would outline the three messages that I am looking for to bring back to the Government.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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We will conclude with that.

Ms Deirdre Mortell:

It has been an excellent debate. I wish to refer also to Senator Zappone's question about the interaction between State and philanthropic funding. It is very important, but we have under-utilised that tool both ways.

State funders have under-utilised the tool in terms of bringing and inviting philanthropies to come to the table and co-fund services or other initiatives and philanthropy has underutilised the tool in terms of bringing the State to the table. It is something we could all do much more.

Speaking from my experience, One Foundation is ten years old and typically agreed three-year contracts with our grantees. The final three-year contracts, which generally were negotiated between 2008 and 2010, focus very explicitly on what we call leverage. We know in advance the spending will end because we will close, so we focused on how to bring other funders to the table at an earlier stage to make the transition easier. I spoke about BeLonG To, and its final year's money of €150,000 was conditional on it matching the amount through fund-raising. I am thrilled to state it hit the fund-raising target in December 2012 and we have released another €150,000 for the organisation for this year. This is an example where the State had already stepped up. BeLonG To needed to build its fund-raising skills and capacity, and needed to start practising early and not wait until we were gone and putting the incentive in place worked. State funders could speak to philanthropists and there could be much more dialogue at all levels. As actors we are very siloed and we could have much more reaching across the divide. At present it is not built into the structures in any way.

The social innovation fund is intended to be 50:50 funding between the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and private philanthropy money to be raised. The initial funding committed from the Department is €5 million. This needed to be matched by €5 million from philanthropy. This is now built into the next stage, assuming it gets off the ground.

My recommendations to the committee are to support the social innovation fund, ask questions, drive it forward and put pressure on the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to deliver. I am sure he will, but the more support he feels he gets, particularly cross-party support, will help. We have spoken about growth capital and committee members have heard how important it is. Everyone here is agreed. Mr. Seán Coughlan mentioned the recommendations from the social enterprise and social entrepreneurship task force. These are small things which are very easy to do but they need to happen. They work across Departments which always makes it harder to deliver. I encourage all committee members to take an interest. The committee should back Change Nation.

We can export these initiatives. We do not have to just import them. We can bring in fantastic international initiatives, but we have global world-class social innovations in this country which are not being exported at the scale they should be because they struggle to get off the ground in the first place. Foróige, in our portfolio, was recognised by UNESCO this year. Its leadership programme for young people is officially world-class. BeLonG To has been recognised as world-class and it is only ten years old. It spoke at a UNESCO conference this year and was presented as official best practice. We have many others, including the people here. We can hold our heads high but we need to get behind them and help push them out. We can be very proud but there is more we can do.

Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Mortell and all of the witnesses who have come before the committee. We have had a very engaging debate. I planned to take a break but I did not want to break the momentum. I also thank my colleagues. A total of 28 Senators attended the Chamber at some stage or another which is almost half of its membership. This is more than usual so the witnesses have attracted much attention and had a very captive audience. I thank everyone for being here for almost three hours.