Mr. Frank Flannery:

Our objective is that the two funds we are hoping to establish would link in with existing structures. We very much welcome the new initiatives which are coming through in the social economy at Government level, such as the one the Deputy mentioned. The Government has several schemes for job creation and it is paying lots of money to individuals to bring jobs into Ireland. However, the Government does not pay any money to anybody for the many thousands of jobs that would emanate from the work we are proposing. Our plan is to fund it in different ways and find new sources of money.

Members gave several suggestions as to how the basic proposal we have set out could be improved. I agree that it is vital to include safeguards to protect against abuse. Deputy Donnelly suggested making the contribution a percentage of forgone tax revenue. I do not have sufficient knowledge of the capacity of our system to evaluate how practical that suggestion might be. The thinking behind our proposal is that we go with something very simple, namely, a contribution of €5 million to a philanthropic endeavour which would be reasonably specified and, in addition, €10 million extra tax to the Minister for Finance. The Deputy is suggesting that this could be beyond the capacity of some of the people we are targeting. That might be so, but the point is that a scheme like this, once it is up and running, can be adapted and developed. The most important issue at this point in time is to get something in place.