Ms Deirdre Mortell:

I will explain why we put this proposal on the table. I am speaking from my experience in my position in One Foundation in the past ten years. On the question of why we would bring forward such a proposal, it is because the existing philanthropic cliff looks like being €50 million to €60 million a year, but it will be going within two years. We need to find money fast or there will be a car crash. It is a case of where one finds money that does not take it away from somewhere else in the economy. There are not very many places in which to look. In my experience over ten years, when we set up One Foundation, which was founded with tax-resident money, we really believed philanthropy was a relay race and that we would play our part for ten years, spend our capital and then other philanthropists would come in. That was the Celtic tiger and we were not expecting a recession. However, even during the Celtic tiger period, that did not happen and new philanthropies were not set up on any scale; in fact, there was hardly any. We learned that this took longer and we are not yet there in terms of potential Irish philanthropists, tax-resident or otherwise, actually going ahead and making these donations and of the scale we urgently need in the next two years. This would not always be our preferred scheme, but we are in a situation where we really need to find new money and we need to find it in ways that will not dislodge existing tax income or spending in the economy. We are undertaking a national giving campaign, but there is one group we are not targeting. There is an equity argument which questions why would some of our wealthiest citizens do not play their part in the national recovery and asks how can we encourage them to step forward.