Ms Caroline Casey:

I am a social entrepreneur who has set up a social enterprise. Something that people in this country are good at is investing in new ideas, but scaling is a major gap. When one scales a social enterprise or innovation, not only does one create a greater impact and ensure that the initial investment is not lost, as one does not want to throw money away, but one also creates jobs.

Regarding the Deputy's question on where the money should go, it is important that, through the job and social cohesion scheme, we consider organisations that have the capacity to scale and to use the money to increase their turnover and provide new employment to five individuals. Employment is low because of a lack of funds in the social sector as much as the small to medium-sized enterprise, SME, sector. The focus should be on impact.