Mr. Frank Flannery:

I thank the Deputy for his comments. If this money emerges, precisely how it will be distributed has not been defined. We provided some strong recommendations, for example, investment in the social innovation fund of Ireland and the job generation scheme. They are different types of scheme, as the former would assist projects in the social economy. As Ms Mortell explained, these projects would be scalable and be capable of being successful and sustainable. In other words, they would not need continual help. They would have the capacity to stand on their own feet. Regardless of whether they would provide services to the community, the Government or whoever, they would need to be sustainable models. It is a real economy. The number of employees in the not-for-profit sector is 102,000. A real injection of energy could double that number.

The discussion on how this would be done is yet to be held. The Government or the scheme could identify certain categories of investment that were acceptable within the scheme, for example, the social innovation and job generation funds. It would depend on the emphasis placed by the Government or the Legislature on certain uses for the money. That is up for discussion to a certain extent, provided that the money is invested generally in the development of the social economy, services and jobs.

Why jobs? At the heart of Government policy is the issue of jobs. It will remain a high priority for a number of years. Investment in the not-for-profit sector is capable of a more efficient transfer of investment into employment than any other sector, albeit with the possible exception of opening new hotels or the like. The services sector can be good at generating jobs. There is little leakage of investment in the not-for-profit sector.

This proposal is not an attempt to replace philanthropy, but to increase the amount of money available by attracting new, non-displacing money. We do not want to set up a largely philanthropic-based social innovation fund that would compete with existing operators who are already struggling.

The market at the moment is too small for that. Our proposal is part of an effort to create a larger market which would generate more resources.

The Deputy referred to the finding in the most recent McKinsey report that our corporates give €1 for every €12 given by their counterparts in the United Kingdom. The headline figure is that 0.1% of corporate profits in this country are dedicated to philanthropy compared with a figure of 1.2% in the neighbouring jurisdiction. I do not know any reason for the discrepancy other than that Irish corporates are not switched on to giving, do not think about it and have no reason to do it. It is not a discussion they have with their auditors, tax advisers or anybody. One of the triggers internationally in encouraging giving, whether by corporates or individuals, is where a discussion takes place at the end of the year when people are doing their final returns. If one's philanthropic effort has some effect on one's final return, it becomes a matter of discussion. It has been shown that where that discussion does take place, the amount of giving increases fourfold on average compared with what is given in the absence of discussion. The problem is that this type of discussion would never take place in a company in Ireland because there is hardly any reason for it. In the case of expenditure on research and development, for example, there is a tangible incentive. There is no incentive at all to give philanthropically; it simply does not arise.

I do not know whether one can conclude that rich people are inherently mean. It is more likely that they are simply not switched on to giving and do not even think about it. Perhaps they have an idea that they will do something in their will. Our objective is to get the concept of giving while living into our system. Problems need to be solved now, not in 50 years' time. We would very much welcome a debate with the public wheel as represented by the Parliament and the political system in general and dragging in the Civil Service as well. We must, in the first instance, ascertain the capacity of the sector to deliver. We must consider how we can put some investment in, whether a body modelled on IDA Ireland, for example, might be appropriate. The bottom line is that there has never been a real attempt to develop the sector. It was always looked at as being relatively insignificant. Members today have expressed surprise at the scale of the sector and the reality that 102,000 people are employed in it. We are used to encountering people's surprise, but the reality is that there is scope to make the sector much larger. It is a sector offering tough employment. It is indigenously structured and will be there when other stuff is gone. It will never be off in some fancy lagoon, because it is not that type of thing at all. There is much to be gained in offering it real encouragement.

Our 1% campaign involves engaging with both the general public and with corporate Ireland - engagement of a fairly pressing nature in the case of the latter - to get the figure of 0.1% up to at least the standard 1%. We are hoping to drag in the inward investment contingent, which includes IBM, Google, Facebook and so on, to get it to do in Ireland what it is doing elsewhere. It is not enough for these companies to make their money in Ireland but do their philanthropy somewhere else. They must be encouraged to give us a share, because a little from them would make a huge difference to us. We have also been asking Irish citizens to do more. It is a matter for the Government to devise a more satisfactory tax regime. That is way beyond our reach and something we cannot really discuss. What we are saying is that the objective, in the meantime, is to drag the money out of these companies and individuals. We would take €600 million today if we got the contribution we are seeking from one in ten of our targets. That becomes €6 billion if we get all 400. In other words, the figures here are potentially large.