Mr. Seán Murphy:

We have 46 affiliated chambers across the country, ranging in size from Dublin to Cork to Galway to Limerick and then smaller community-driven chambers in other parts of the country.

We work on a discrete basis with a large number of entities from Eircom to Microsoft. Eircom is rolling out a significant spend on broadband roll-out across the country and we have done approximately 25 events with it throughout the country profiling it to our chamber members, which has gone very well.

Microfinance Ireland will do something similar, targeting a discrete number of a particular type of chamber that might have a higher preponderance of SMEs, addressing their boards, talking about the product and profiling it in local channels thereafter. We can do that with many others. We have offered to do likewise for some of the new schemes emanating from the Department of Social Protection and others. The appetite of the Department of Social Protection and others to spend money on marketing and communications is for them to decide. If they do not spend it, they will not get the return.

The organisation is funded through a number of different sources and is not for profit. We have approximately 12 or 13 lines of revenue including events, publications, commercial partnerships, patronages and, crucially, subscriptions from our members. Given that our members are affiliated chambers, which have memberships, our subscriptions are a relatively small part of our revenue and therefore we have to earn revenue through other sources. While funding is a challenge, Chambers Ireland is a very cost-effective operation and should be a key channel into communities around the country. Organisations such as SEPA have found it worthwhile to work with us in activating that.