Mr. Seamus Mulconry:

The form of grant conforms with a proposal that would allow anybody who wishes to set up a trust or foundation to retain the taxable benefit for themselves rather than the entity that they donate into. At present, if one donates to charity the taxable benefit goes to the charity rather than the individual. If one is chasing large donations and going after very large amounts of money, it is very difficult to get to those people. The only people who get to them on a regular basis are tax advisers. We seek a hoop that will allow us to reach the tax adviser and then reach the individual for very large donations or to set up a foundation themselves. We need to create some organisations or entities that can deal in very large amounts of money so that the game changer idea can be funded.

As the Deputy mentioned, there are gaps in the entire life cycle of social enterprises. Some ideas or organisations reach a certain scale where they can provide a national benefit but they need access to large funds. That is why we are trying to have more trusts and foundations so that we can fund such an initiative.

I shall outline one of the must frustrating elements of my job. People assume that I am a grant giver because I am an executive director of Philanthropy Ireland and all kinds of people with brilliant ideas arrive at my office. To be honest, of the 60 ideas that I have received since I joined Philanthropy Ireland I would recommend three of them for a serious conversation and only one for funding.

I will outline some of the ideas that I have received. Recently I spoke to somebody who has an idea and the technology to create a food bank for the greater Dublin area. A food bank is not about waste food being redistributed to the poor; it is about surplus food in the system not being wasted. The initiative would save thousands of euro for the charities who distribute food and solve a waste problem for companies. There are protocols in place that would ensure that the food bank can be done in such as way that it does not involve second rate food being given to people or a brand problem for a company later on. There are some game changer ideas. I refer to times when one looks across the table at a person and thinks their idea could make a difference. At present we do not have entities that can fund such activity but we need them. That is why we are so anxious to get increased funding into the philanthropic sector. It would mean that we could fund such initiatives and things that are unpopular.

If one asks most people on the street one will discover that they will not give money to fund ex-prisoners. If one can get a person not to return to jail then one will save a fortune. It costs more to keep an individual in jail for one year than it costs for all of his or her education up to and including degree level. We spend a lot of money keeping people in poverty. A smarter use of money would save ourselves a lot but that depends on a vibrant philanthropic sector. As I said earlier, Irish people are very generous but we need to get them to add a little bit of thought to their generosity thus ensuring more effective spending.