Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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The witnesses made a statement earlier that a scheme may never have got off the ground and never reached the level of activity or uptake envisaged. I think that goes to the heart of the matter. This is not designed for the kind of uptake and profile of how things happen at community level. My understanding is that it is so cumbersome to apply for that there are people and organisations that looked at it and simply dismissed it. These are not organisations that do not need money or where €1 million would not make a difference. There could be 25 such organisations around the country if that was the case. How many of the years we are talking about are years when the troika was here? We were told that we were bankrupt. People scrapped for every single shilling. Some of those communities were among the most impacted.

This is not designed for the people it is supposed to benefit. How many people from disadvantaged communities said this would work for them and this is what they needed? I am not saying there should not be oversight and good accounting for things. However, much of our community exists in a very informal way. Some organisations have to exist in that kind of informal environment, yet we are looking at a very rigid system where it is difficult to access funding for worthwhile things. Some of projects brought forward do not get the uptake because they are not what the community requires. If they were in place and the community required them, it would use them. It tells us something about who is designing the system for whom.

If there is going to be a redesign, the witnesses will have to engage the communities that are going to be the benefices of this scheme in that design. It has to be designed in such a way that it is flexible enough for people to engage with it and not spend a lot of administrative time they do not have applying for it or drawing it down. There is a big deficiency. I agree with the Chairman about it not just being a review but a redesign. I do not think Pobal can be blamed for administering a scheme it did not design. The administration of it should be flexible enough.

I want to ask about a few of the schemes. There was about €500,000 of an underspend in the community-based model for people with dementia. Has that been spent? In respect of training and support services for homecarers, there was €500,000 but up to 2016, nothing was spent. Has that been spent? On the Arts in Education initiative, €50,000 was drawn down from €280,000. Has the rest of it been drawn down?

I refer to €1 million allocated to establish a monitoring programme under the Department of Justice and Equality. A value of €798,000 was approved but nothing was drawn down by 2016. Have these all been drawn down now or is there outstanding money in those particular categories? If so, why is that the case?