Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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That is no problem. I have raised projects under subhead B12, the community services programme, on several occasions with regard to my area but it will be relevant to others. Many of these social enterprises are under real pressure.

Their income has been decimated over the past seven months. Now, after being closed for months, they are operating at 30% or 40% capacity. The funding that is coming in would help to bring them up to a level where they are at least able to offer the minimum wage, if not the living wage, but it will be a massive challenge over the coming year. I am really concerned, as are the organisations themselves, about how they are going to do that, bearing in mind that we are at level 3 and the infection rate numbers are not great. I hope we do not go any higher than level 3 but there is a possibility that we will. The organisations in question are worried about that and will have to take it into account when making their projections.

My second point relates to the overall programme. We should be looking at bringing it up to minimum wage and then allowing any the excess profits that are made by particular projects to be pumped back into bringing people up to the living wage. Not all of the programmes are at the living wage level but it is the minimum we should expect.