Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The main item on the agenda is our second discussion on the parliamentary budget cycle and the committee's consideration of putting in our own pre-budget submission to the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in advance of next autumn's budget.

The committee has taken the decision that it will specifically submit proposals to Government for consideration as part of the budget 2022 process. Not only will we look at the spending measures, but specific recommendations on how to deliver programmes across the Department of Social Protection and the Department of Rural and Community Development. In this regard the committee advertised for submissions. Again, I thank the stakeholders, groups and individuals who submitted documentation to us. These have been very beneficial to us in our deliberations.

At our meeting we will hear from one such stakeholder group when we gain further insight into the submission of the Irish Local Development Network, ILDN, which a representative body of Ireland's local development companies. It represents 49 local development companies that provide a comprehensive range of community-based services in areas such as social inclusion, personal development and well-being, early years and family support, education and training, employment services, enterprise and social enterprise, climate change and just transition.

The representatives from the ILDN will tell us that the local development companies support more than 15,000 communities and community groups and 173,000 individuals annually through €330 million of State-funded programmes, allocated at national level. These include LEADER, the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, the national walks and recreation programme, social enterprise supports, Tús, the rural social scheme, RSS, the local employment service, LES, and the back-to-work enterprise allowance.

The committee looks forward to hearing about the work of these community companies in supporting citizens and communities and their most recent and ongoing work responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, the local development network companies throughout the country have been to the fore in designing innovative solutions to meet the needs of people isolated in their own homes as a result of the lockdown.

The committee wants to explore how some of these innovations can now be mainstreamed to meet the needs of those who have been isolated in the past and remain so, regardless of physical location or public health guidance. In addition to exploring the pre-budget submission with the ILDN, we will have the opportunity to discuss the broader policy issues, such as the ILDN's strategy statement and the issue of the outsourcing of local employment services and related procurement matters. It is an issue on which members of this committee have received many representations and one which has engaged the committee on numerous occasions since our establishment.

In that regard, I welcome Mr. Joseph Saunders, chief executive officer of the ILDN, and Ms Adeline O'Brien, chairperson of the ILDN's social inclusion committee. They are most welcome.

Turning to matters of privilege, members of this committee and of the Houses have absolute privilege in respect of statements made in either House of the Oireachtas or before the committee. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses present on the precincts of Leinster House are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are required to give to a committee. If, in the course of committee proceedings, they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a Member of either House of the Oireachtas, a person outside of the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I call Mr. Saunders, chief executive officer of the ILDN, to make his opening remarks.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

Go raibh míle maith ag an gcoiste as an gcuireadh a bheith leis an gcoiste inniu. I thank the committee for the invitation to join the meeting today to discuss the its preparation for budget 2022. We look forward to having a fruitful discussion and being as helpful as possible to the committee in its own deliberations.

In his opening remarks, the Chairman alluded to the breadth and scope of the ILDN activity and referred to the 49 members companies, so I do not propose to repeat that. I will start on one of the points to which the Chairman alluded, namely, the local development company response to the Covid crisis. The national footprint the companies have in delivering on a local community level allowed local development companies to be what we might term first responders to the Covid crisis, initially contacting tens of thousands of our hardest-to-reach citizens and thousands of community groups in the infancy of the crisis.

I thank the relevant funding Departments, particularly the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Social Projection for the flexibility that was shown over this period which allowed local development companies to tailor-make solutions for their own particular areas and communities. This included deploying staff to FoodCloud and ALONE, filling in pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, forms for those without computer access or know-how, and providing food and medicines through the social inclusion community activation programme, Tús and the rural social scheme. At a human level, members will recall the days of the pandemic when there were difficulties for people visiting loved ones and those in their final days in nursing homes. We rapidly organised a virtual laptop visitation scheme for the loved ones with family members in nursing homes who could not access those homes in the Dublin metropolitan and surrounding areas. Our work also involved supporting social enterprises, whose income base had collapsed in the early weeks of the pandemic but whose services were required more than ever.

There was also the support of social enterprises, whose income base had collapsed in the early weeks of the pandemic but whose services were required more than ever.

In the first four weeks of the crisis, local development companies received an average of 2,200 pandemic-specific requests for assistance each day and they responded to each of these through the deployment of 1,400 staff and 980 scheme workers for tasks that were specifically associated with the community call in response to the crisis. A good example of this was the area of food poverty. Following the onset of social restrictions, FoodCloud and the ILDN came together to see if they could plug the gaps across the country where these existed. As a result of this rapid scaling up, local development companies collaborated with FoodCloud to set up food banks in 22 counties, mainly where this provision was not previously available. It also augmented existing provision in other counties. While food poverty was not new at this point, it had manifested itself in a new and extreme way which required a rapid response. This collaboration with FoodCloud was presented by Ireland as a case study at the recent OECD seminar on best practice in local development response to Covid-19. We also supplied staff through ILDN to FoodCloud distribution hubs in major cities, as well as distributing food countrywide to social inclusion target groups through Tús, RSS and SICAP, whose infrastructure and the availability of vans and storage facilities allowed this to happen rapidly.

Such responses have been based on a partnership between the State and the local development sector that worked very effectively. While there were significant challenges, and we would like to have done more and for more people, it is fair to say that local development companies, given their expertise and infrastructure, were not overwhelmed at that point. With highly skilled and experienced staff, they continue to be a sustainable agile delivery mechanism as this crisis morphs and, hopefully, settles. However, in many ways it is only deepening now and we will see the longer-term effects as time passes. Local development companies will play a key role in the ongoing well-being, mental health and community building that is now required and, crucially, in getting people back to work and assisting social life to re-emerge, albeit under new conditions.

Given the range of services provided by our members, as outlined by the Chairman, we will not speak to all the programmes today, but we wish to highlight a number of priorities which the committee might consider in its budget proposals. The first is THE LES. The Department of Social Protection contracts ILDN members for the provision of local employment services in 23 locations. Providers deliver a case-managed employment service for all jobseekers and this has been positively evaluated by the independent consultants, Indecon International Economic Consultants. Given the uncertainty in the labour market, the high numbers requiring activation over the next two years and the capacity available to the State through local development companies, we have reiterated our position that now is not the time to embark on a realignment of existing LES operational areas, as is being proposed with the introduction of a dual-strand procurement process. That will disrupt activation services at a time when they are most needed. ILDN has proposed that all local development companies that do not have an existing LES would be in a position to pilot an LES-type service reflective of the Covid-19 context and the changing socioeconomic profile. In this period, local development companies with LES contracts would continue to deliver the current LES, but provide enhanced services and do so for all jobseekers. This proposal offers an agile and affordable response to the inevitable high demand for employment services over the coming months and years. There is integration with existing rural employment and inclusion services where LES do not currently exist, no requirement to develop infrastructure ab initio and no disruption to existing services from a realignment of operational areas or the loss of skilled staff.

Moving to the LEADER programme, the next EU LEADER programme will not commence until 2023. To bridge the gap to the start of the next programme, a transitional LEADER has come into effect with a budget of €70 million to the end of 2022. ILDN and its members have warmly welcomed this allocation. The LEADER programme offers the ideal vehicle for the delivery of development funding to rural areas in the most effective manner. Community-led local development, CLLD, acts at European level as a multi-fund approach, that is, by joining different funding programmes and instruments one can achieve greater results. We believe there is merit in the adaptation of a CLLD muli-fund approach for LEADER to ensure rural communities benefit from all available EU and State supports.

Furthermore, it is important that the Government allocates the maximum percentage possible of Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, Pillar 2 funding and Exchequer co-funding for the purposes of LEADER. We regret that the ILDN and its members have not been included in the CAP consultative committee overseen by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which is drawing up the new CAP proposals at national level. It is regrettable that those who deliver LEADER, an important element of the CAP budget, do not have a seat at this table and it is important that this committee is aware of this point and that it monitors how the CAP strategic planning process unfolds.

With regard to other activation schemes, particularly Tús, community employment, CE, and RSS, we believe it is critical to allow for maximum participation in these important schemes in the years ahead. The rural social scheme currently faces a critical juncture and an inevitable decline if impending impacts of eligibility rules are not addressed soon. There is a six-year rule in place, introduced in 2017, and its impacts are about to apply in early 2023. If left in place, this provision will remove 38% of the schemes, with just over 3,000 participants, in a three-year period, which will have devastating consequences for the scheme itself, those who are on it and the communities in which such valuable work takes place. Together with the 13% who will leave at normal retirement age, this means that over half of the scheme will be removed. This represents a cliff edge for rural communities in work undertaken, experience and leadership loss and a reduction in biodiversity by pushing landowners off the land and their replacement by more monoculture practices. ILDN urges the Government to review this rule ahead of budget 2022 and to bring forward reforms to protect participation in this vital scheme. Eligibility reform is necessary to ensure that the scheme survives.

Eligibility change is also necessary with the Tús scheme. Tús saw reduced numbers prior to the pandemic, but this was exacerbated by it more recently. A number of reforms to eligibility criteria and length of service on the scheme and, crucially, for improved referral processes are needed to ensure the programme stays at the heart of the State's activation options and continues to serve those most in need of this valuable work experience prior to their fuller entry to the labour market.

I will hand over the final part of our submission to my colleague, Ms Adeline O'Brien, who is the CEO of Empower in the Fingal area and chair of the ILDN social inclusion committee.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

The SICAP budget is currently 50% of what it was in 2008. The current budget is €43 million, a fall from €84.7 million in 2008. Those who are already disadvantaged are likely to be more so due to crises in health, the economy, education and employment, such as Covid-19. This is compounded by poorer access to information technology and digital and online services. As we move into the recovery phase, digitalisation and the remote delivery of services will become mainstream across society, thus causing further disadvantage to groups with poor access to, and experience of, digital channels.

To protect vulnerable groups, typically SICAP target groups, the ILDN proposes a digital inclusion fund, to be administered by local development companies in conjunction with SICAP. This is in keeping with the European Commission recommendation that Ireland address the risk of a digital divide. While specific funding is required for the digital inclusion fund, the initiative will benefit from existing integrated services and facilities throughout the local development network. Further investment in SICAP is also important in the context of the implementation of the Government's White Paper on ending direct provision.

In terms of a sustainable local development sector, ILDN is seeking the introduction of a core cost funding model as a more sustainable and equitable approach to supporting the inclusion-focused and anti-poverty work of local development companies country-wide. This model is based on a full costs recovery system in line with objective No. 4 of the Government’s sustainable, inclusive and empowered communities strategy. I thank the members for their attention.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for the presentation.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank Mr. Saunders and Ms O'Brien for their presentation, which was very interesting, and the more detailed submission, which gave me much more to dig into. I strongly praise the role that the network has played in tackling the pandemic. One of the words used in the submission is "agility" and the service really demonstrated its agility, speed and creativity in its response to the pandemic. It should be praised for how quickly that was rolled out.

I have some questions that might provide the witnesses an opportunity to give some more detail on elements of the submission. The submission recommends reforms of Tús community employment and rural social schemes. What reforms do the witnesses propose? Ms O'Brien spoke about a core costs model. This is not a concept I understand well so I am interested in the witnesses taking time to dig down into that a bit more.

I am interested in hearing how much would make the digital inclusion fund successful? There is an idea about rolling out the local employment service to areas not currently provided for, which makes a huge amount of sense, but I am interested in hearing the detail of how much it would cost, how quickly it could be rolled out and what kind of Government supports would be needed to make that an adequate response. Those are four points and there is much to get through in the time.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

I can speak specifically about the digital inclusion fund and Mr. Saunders can respond on the other issues. We are proposing a digital inclusion fund and the rationale is that we are all aware of the digital divide that became apparent during the pandemic. It is important to note the digital divide was always there, although masked in a way with services similar to ours, where we delivered on-site and bespoke one-to-one training and support for people accessing information and communications technology systems. Once the pandemic hit and everybody was expected to access those services within their home, the divide became very apparent.

We have assessed the need for digital inclusion and we see access to digital technology as a rights-based matter, as it has an impact on a person's ability to access services. We see mainstream transition to most services, including the delivery of healthcare, employment services, Department of Social Protection services and housing, and we see people living in marginalised communities further disadvantaged and marginalised.

We have identified four particular characteristics of digital exclusion and, within that, the four components that need to be in place for a person to be fully digitally included. There is the hardware piece that became very obvious, and we saw many news items with community groups responding to people in need of hardware and devices. Along with that is a need for an operating system; there is a software requirement when a piece of hardware is provided to a person so the device can operate and function fully. There is also digital competence, and this is about a person having the capacity and ability to engage online in the same way as he or she would in person. That might be second nature or mainstream to some of us but it can be a very alien concept for people who are not digitally included or are otherwise marginalised for a variety of reasons. The final component is connectivity, and that is not just about whether there is provision in an area. It is about the cost of connectivity. We see broadband and connectivity as an essential utility and one cannot be fully included without that. Unless all four components are in place, a person cannot be fully included in society to access all required services.

We are proposing a digital inclusion fund that could be easily administered throughout the local development network. As has been mentioned, this network would have national reach and the proposition is that the nuances of digital inclusion in each part of the country could be addressed specifically in each county or small area by the local development company. As was mentioned by the previous speaker, we have managed to have an impact on marginalised people in a very robust and agile way right across the country, and we see digital inclusion as just an extension of that.

There is not a major distinction between levels of poverty, whether it is food, energy or digital poverty. We have demonstrated a clear ability to respond to food poverty very quickly and we can and have been doing the same with respect to digital poverty. We estimate that in order to achieve national coverage, the cost would be approximately €7.4 million, which is an average of approximately €160,000 per local development company. We feel we are ready to go with this vital service when we are talking about access to online services becoming mainstream for everybody. We have already seen those on the margins excluded before the pandemic becoming further excluded, with deprivation becoming more compounded as a result of this exclusion.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

I can briefly address the three other matters raised by the Deputy, beginning with the core costs. As the Chairman outlined, there is a very wide range, breadth and scope of activity that local development companies deliver on behalf of the State. There is a very small amount of philanthropic funding and it is fair to say more than 98% of income is from the State; it is a delivery arm of State services. Within that context, the sustainability of local development companies is not a given. Moreover, the sustainability of many companies is currently under threat.

Members should be aware that many of the programmes we deliver do not make an adequate contribution, if any, to core management or administration costs. We often take programmes for delivery based on the fact that there is infrastructure already available in the local development companies. There is an over-reliance on core programmes, such as LEADER and SICAP, in this regard to provide staffing, management and administration. As members have already heard, the SICAP budget is 50% of what it was in 2008.

Our argument is that if the State values this delivery of almost a third of a billion of programming in the social area each year, the viability of local development companies needs to be underpinned. That is currently not happening adequately. As part of the Government's sustainable, inclusive and empowered community strategy, of which we were a co-creator, in collaboration with a number of other colleague organisations in the NGO sector, there are commitments to core cost multiannual funding models. The progress on these must be accelerated and this must be addressed before any further difficulties are experienced.

With regard to the Tús programme and eligibility criteria, Deputy Ó Cuív was the initiator of the programme and is aware that it was designed in a time of high unemployment to provide work experience for those who were job-ready and had suffered in the previous recession. Employment figures improved prior to the pandemic and those on Tús were experiencing greater distance or barriers to entry into the labour market. The one-year experience on the programme was very valuable but in many cases people required a longer period.

Our first recommendation for Tús is to reduce the qualification period from three years to one year.

This is because many participants were being forced to leave the scheme and go back on unemployment payments, were distanced from the labour market and could not get back on for three years. Our second recommendation is that employment contracts be extended for participants identified as needing increased support to ensure their eventual progression. In many cases, this would need to be two or, possibly, three years. We recommend to update the eligibility criteria to increase access to the programme for other jobseekers, not only those on qualifying payments. Our third recommendation relates to the extension of employment contracts for Tús participants aged 62 or over who had little opportunity to go back into the open labour market but were providing vital community and also protecting their own health and well-being the programme with very little cost to the State.

On the final point regarding the LES programme, I suspect other members may wish to contribute on this as well. I will keep my comments brief. The LES is located in 26 contract areas throughout the country. There are large gaps. We would welcome any extension of that but, at present, we would say that the current providers are in a position to move in an agile way with a small budget increase. Currently, LES provision nationally is of the order of €18 million to €19 million. On the requirement to extend that nationally, non-LES companies - that is, the local development companies that do not have LES contracts - have rural employment services through SICAP and pre-employment services through Tús and the RSS. They have other projects and programmes which they are delivering as well. As a result, they could easily translate this into a wider LES-type provision for what we estimate to be a cost of €14 million to €15 million. That would bring the total cost for a national employment service open to all citizens to between €33 million and €35 million.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms O'Brien and Mr. Saunders. I have just a couple of questions. They have covered some of the issues that I wanted to raise so I will not go over them again.

I will make a quick comment on the digital poverty piece. It is something I found interesting over the course of the past year and a bit. Also, I have worked in areas of educational disadvantage where I saw it at first hand. Even this week, I met with the parents of children with dyslexia who must apply to the Department for tablets or laptops and yet, ironically, during the Covid pandemic, third level students were automatically given laptops and tablets. It is interesting that we have children who I have seen at 13, 14 or 15 years of age dropping out of school who eventually will end up engaging with services such as the LES and Tús. It is like closing the door after the horse has bolted. If we can close the gap in terms of digital poverty as we go forward, particularly with young people, it will make a massive difference to their lives.

In the context of the LES, my question relates to something I have spoken about at length previously. The concern I would have, having read the submission, relates to whether our guests are asking for existing services to be in some way red-circled or are they saying that the new services that will be put in place in those areas that do not have a LES will be the new model which is being proposed by the Department of Social Protection. Obviously, my preferred option would be that this is not-for-profit and no for-profit organisations would every get their hands on it. I would always fear - this goes back to industrial relations - that if you red-circle employees, then invariably down the line those red circles eventually become a target. The services that are being provided for profit can operate on different wages and conditions for staff, different operating conditions, etc., and all of a sudden you have maybe 14 or 15 LES operators for profit who are operating a completely different system. The pressure comes on then if you are paying decent wage, if you have good conditions for your workers and if you are also providing a good service.

Another issue I have relates to the community development projects. At the time I was involved in community development projects, we had locally managed community development projects which were in the community. I note that there are a number of pilot projects. In the context of the local development companies, SICAP funding and community development projects, I would have a concern about how representative it is in disadvantaged working-class areas and how a community can decide for itself where that funding goes. I would have a huge concern that it is becoming very much a top-down as opposed to bottom-up approach to funding for disadvantaged areas.

Then there is the last piece around the food banks. In my opinion, food banks are fundamental evident of failure in society to provide a decent income for people and they are something that we should be always working to get rid of. It is not something that should become endemic or that could be a core piece of work for any organisation because if we provided people with a decent income, they would not have to access food banks, food clouds, etc. I understand the concept behind them. I understand that they are what is needed at the moment and that many families rely on them. We should be looking to do ourselves our of jobs in terms of poverty, digital poverty, food poverty, etc. I will leave it at that.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy. I do not know who wants to kick off there. I ask Mr. Saunders to keep his replies brief in order to allow members to come back in.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

Certainly. I thank the Chair and the Deputy.

To address the food banks issue, I agree 100%. This should not be something that becomes embedded in our practices as a society. This was a moment-in-time response. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State has set up a working group on this but, as the Deputy rightly identifies, it is an issue to do with the adequacy of income provision. It is at this level that it should be sorted on a long-term basis. From our perspective, the pandemic has shown that this need existed. It predated the pandemic but it came out because suddenly people realised there was an option to access the service in this way. Even in the context of my office, which is a central office that does not necessarily deal with the public, we had huge demands being placed on us and we had to redirect certain of those demands to local areas. The point is well made and I agreed with it. This should not be allowed to be embedded. It is a moment-in-time response which needs to evolve rapidly into a more long-term response.

On the LES issue and the possible dual-strand approach, the job conditions and, of course, the job qualifications which speaks to the quality of the service in the current LES is something that we need to drag everybody up to, not drag down to others. My fear for a dual-stranded process is contagion from the poorer standard to the better standard. It behoves us to respect and protect the employment conditions, but also the service standards, that are currently so positively evaluated by external agencies such as Indecon and ESRI in relation to local employment services.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

I thank the Deputy. On community development, the local development company provides an infrastructure and there is a national infrastructure that allows and facilitates community development at grassroots level. I agree entirely with the Deputy that it is in areas of deprivation where we see a greater demand for services, even typical medical services. You see people in disadvantaged areas having to access services in twice the number as an average area. We see a huge continuing demand for community development engagement, particularly in areas of disadvantage. It is not that it is a replacing of grassroots or a suppression from the top down.

It is more about providing an infrastructure nationally that has tentacles in every small area of the country. It is about identifying those needs on the ground and supporting the people who live in that area to come together. We very often find, particularly in the Fingal area as the Deputy will be aware, that we have a very diverse community. A huge proportion of the people who now live in Fingal were not born or did not grow up in Ireland. The natural infrastructure we would have seen in communities fadó fadó does not really exist for many people. Those natural networks of support that would normally have been there do not exist for everybody.

We see a role in manufacturing a community development infrastructure and a national network of support for people, particularly those on the margins. It is about empowering those people to come together to form a critical mass in order that their voices can be heard. Once that happens through the SICAP programme, when we engage with groups the objective is to ensure they become sustainable and exercise and politicise themselves in their own way with their own voices. That is a core principle of what the local development company is doing, particularly with marginalised groups.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I will raise a number of issues. I agree with the proposal that the LES should be extended to cover the whole country because there are issues in relation to employment everywhere. I have always abominated the situation we had initially when I became Minister, where some areas were covered by partnerships and others were not, even though there is poverty, deprivation, disadvantage or whatever one wants to call it, in all areas.

The witnesses might clarify one technical question for the committee. When do existing LES contracts terminate? Is there a clause within those contracts that allows the State to extend them? There is no point in us making a proposal if people come back to us saying that the contracts legally terminate on a certain date. Can that issue be clarified?

Are ILDN companies interested in taking over or doing the work previously done by Turas Nua, JobPath in other words, and Seetec? Again, we should not bring in multinationals to do this work. It would be much better done by partnership companies where the board would be made up of local people, rather than some big board outside their area. The issue is not whether the companies are technically not-for-profit but, rather, do they belong to the people and are they of the people? That is absolutely vital.

I will make a comment on LEADER. The State is finding it very hard to spend capital funding. If I was in the ILDN, I would instruct all the companies to keep spending and improving until they are out of money and to do it in a year if they can. Then, like Oliver, they can go back and say, "Please sir, can we have some more", because my guess is there will be much more available. We have made spending money so difficult. No matter what the sphere, we will see that everything will have surplus money and everyone will be screaming to try to spend the €10 billion capital. The figures keep indicating the same thing. The Covid pandemic is only part of that problem; our own structure is another.

I will make a comment about Tús. The witnesses are very modest in their request. When Tús was set up, the Department of Finance got at it, as it will get at these things. It was in December 2010, which, it might be remembered, was not a great time. The idea of Tús was to employ on work schemes people who failed to get a job through CE and those who would never be likely to get employment in the competitive labour market. It was never meant to be a one-year scheme.

I would like the witnesses' views on whether they accept there are people who are unlikely to get what I would call competitive private sector employment but who still can perform very useful tasks in our communities that are absolutely required and who do so efficiently and at an economic cost. I put the question that if we were a hell of a lot more ambitious or radical then the witnesses were today - only allowing it for over 62-year-olds - would they be opposed to us? As for the RSS, I abhor and totally disagree with the introduction of the rule changes in 2017 on means testing, which means that people, even those who have partners and families, will get €23 for 19 hours' work a week. That is wrong. How would the witnesses feel if we said to go back to pre-2017 rules that were working perfectly? We are going to run out of people on the RSS.

I will make another point and give a figure I have to hand. I made inquiries about Tús numbers. I presume this is replicated around the country but the witnesses might confirm it. In 2017, in Connemara, Údarás na Gaeltachta had 52 and Forum Connemara 53 work placements. In 2020, those numbers had dropped to 49 and 28, respectively, because the referrals were not coming. If that is an indicator of the rest of the country at a time of the highest unemployment, we have experienced for many years, we have a major structural problem. On SICAP, I note what was said about the drop in budget. We will not go into that because others have covered what I was going to say fairly well.

Finally, and I thank the Chair for the indulgence, I will make three points on digital exclusion. One, people still should be able to get a human being at the end of a telephone for services. Some people will never become digitally included, particularly if they are dealing with State services. They will be able to send an email, watch Facebook, do Zoom meetings and all sorts of things, but they will not feel comfortable doing official business with the State, digitally. Second, would the witnesses back me in stating that people should be able to make phone contact and fill in paper forms if they want? The State puts many burdens on people. It should not stop people insisting on a little extra work if they want to fill in a form the old-fashioned way. It might not be as handy for the State, but the State is not here to be handy for itself; it is here to provide service for the people. Finally, has any analysis been done on badly-written programmes? I keep looking for services digitally and I use many services digitally. I obviously use a computer all day, every day, but some programmes are very badly written, are confusing and create problems for people who are not familiar with them. Those are my issues. Does the Chair want to skip to the next person and let them be bulked in?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Deputy Ó Cuív definitely deserves one-to-one attention. We might start with Mr. Saunders and then go to Ms O'Brien.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

To address the LES contracts issue, members of the committee may be aware that LES contracts have been offered on a yearly basis for the past two and a half decades. The current contract, which existing LES providers are working under, is a contract presented to them last November. It came into operation at the beginning of January and is for one year, until the end of 2021.

Would we be willing to take on the work that other contract providers are doing? Our submission and opening statement allude to the fact that we are willing to provide a comprehensive employment service for all citizens, regardless of means or need, but the financial and delivery models for how that is done are extremely important. Our voluntary boards do not wish to make profit out of any jobseeker or to engage in per-unit costings where upfront funding is needed.

We want a model run on a community not-for-profit basis which is available to all citizens. We would provide that while operating the entirety of activation services if asked to do so. We propose to extend our current operations rapidly and radically.

With regard to the RSS, I agree with the Deputy's two criticisms of the rule changes. This scheme does vital work. To give a good concrete example of how it contributes to the mission of Ireland Inc., the Wild Atlantic Way benefits from thousands of RSS and Tús scheme workers providing environmental management, beach clean-ups, litter clean-ups and interaction with visitors along the route. This work is quiet and unseen but is vital in many areas. The Deputy is right about the cohort involved. There are challenges in filling vacancies on these schemes. Any obstacles like the six-year rule are to the detriment of both the individuals who would be on the scheme and the wider communities they would serve through their work.

As to the LEADER programme, the pressure to spend is always there. As the Deputy knows well, this is a developmental programme and there is an arc to the funding pattern over the seven years. Our members are working extremely hard to get this money out into communities. They have animated and are fielding a great range of expressions of interest and are turning them into applications. The Deputy will be very aware of some of the gold-plating of the European rules which has stood in the way of that over the past while. We will be looking to return to more simplified, less bureaucratic mechanisms for the expenditure of moneys that are closer to the point of delivery in the design of the next programme.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív. With regard to digital inclusion, we see the need for both. I do not believe that anybody would argue that the art of human engagement and supporting the most vulnerable people could be entirely replaced with online services. In fact, many of the supports we provided through a digital inclusion programme during the pandemic involved supporting people to access services online while in a face-to-face setting. There is no sense that everything needs to be moved completely online. There will always be face-to-face interaction. Many of our services are delivered in that way. It is about making sure those people who are accessing our services and who are engaged in their communities can also do so online. There is no doubt that 80% of engagement with services will move online. It is about giving everyone the opportunity to do both rather than about replacing our face-to-face services with digital engagement.

The Deputy is quite right with regard to the Tús programme. Obviously referrals will need to open up. We have already spoken about some of our recommendations for reform of the scheme. With regard to people not competing in the general labour market, as the Deputy has rightly pointed out, there are many reasons for that. Some of these relate to language issues or intergenerational unemployment. We are also seeing intergenerational ill health in disadvantaged communities. People with convictions or caring duties also face difficulties. While the Tús programme provides really valuable and critical work experience for the individual, we also see it as providing community services. It provides positive social contact for people, allowing them to connect with their own communities. Not everybody has a natural infrastructure of support and care around them. We would often say that somebody might get a start in one of these places. If you are new to a community or if you have been marginalised for any reason, the Tús programme opens up possibilities for engagement and integration in the local community. It also provides routine and a meaningful social role in the community. We see it as having enormous benefits beyond the work experience itself. Deputy Ó Cuív is absolutely right.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank both witnesses for their presentations. I have just a couple of questions. The first relates to food poverty, which appears to be a growing issue. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was before the committee last week and its representatives flagged this as an issue that is going to grow as we emerge out of the Covid pandemic. With regard to the food banks set up by the Irish Local Development Network in conjunction with FoodCloud in 22 counties, mostly counties where they were not previously provided, will the representatives give a bit more detail? Are these services still ongoing? Does the network see them remaining in place in the majority of these counties? It has been said deprivation is a cause of concern. We know deprivation had increased in 2019, long before the arrival of Covid. That will be of major concern as we move forward.

It is important that we acknowledge the wonderful work of local employment services. This was reflected in the 2018 Indecon report. It showed the excellent relationships services have with local employers and with those who use them. We also have to acknowledge local employment services are unique in that they serve a much wider cohort than only those jobseekers who are referred to them. People can just walk in, including those who are furthest away from sourcing employment. That is really important. It makes the services unique and it is why it is so important they continue in their current not-for-profit community-based form.

I raised this issue with the Minister last night as a priority question. She announced that the external report carried out on contracted services, which has not been published up until now, will be published. That will be interesting. The network has suggested now is not the time to embark on a realignment. The extension to the four new areas is coming up fairly quickly. I assume that tender will be here any day because the Minister still says the Government will be moving on that in July and will get it set up and established. They are seeking for the new and existing services to begin in January. I also got the impression from the Minister last night that JobPath will continue into next year. Referrals were meant to end at the end of 2019 and then again this year, but they have not. That is a cause of concern.

Another thing the Minister is now saying, which I have not heard before, is that the costs-met model, the current model of the local employment services, involves day-to-day scrutiny of expenditure and is burdensome on the employment services and on the Department. She is now clearly saying, as she said last night, that a payment for each individual referred is the preferred approach. This is, of course, the model of JobPath. I am even more concerned about where we are going now. It is something on which we need to keep a very close eye. If something is not broken, it should not be fixed. The local employment services are excellent. They need to be extended but the community not-for-profit model is absolutely critical. The network will have our full support on that.

With regard to community employment, age is obviously a big issue for this and for other schemes. What is the network seeing with regard to age? How much of an issue is age for those over 55 who would like to take up a place on a community employment scheme? I would imagine that, in many cases, people leaving these schemes will not be replaced. There was already an issue with people being referred to the likes of community employment schemes, which was heavily impacted by a preference for JobPath. In many areas, I would imagine that, where people have to leave, the service will simply no longer exist. That is also of concern.

The network has clearly done an awful lot of really good and rewarding work throughout the Covid pandemic. I acknowledge that. It has played a critical role in helping people throughout the pandemic. I thank the witnesses.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

With regard to the proposed new contracts for local employment services, we obviously have not seen the details. We have noted the responses to parliamentary questions. I will go back to my earlier statement that the voluntary boards of local development companies operate on a not-for-profit basis. They are not interested in profiteering through costs per unit for jobseeker placements or assistance.

The SICAP model is a costs-met model, which provides the oversight that the funder and the taxpayer is due and needs but it does it in a way that is not based on a per-unit cost; there are some penalties, or what are called remedies, involved. Therefore, there is a way of providing oversight on the one hand, minimising bureaucracy for the provider and having a fair funding model. There is a way to do that and even at this point, we would encourage that whatever eventual contracts come out should utilise the best of each of those aspects on a community-based not-for-profit service that puts the jobseeker at the heart of the service.

On food poverty, I think we are all aware that the issue has not abated. The service continues, it morphs slightly in different areas as needs settle down in particular areas or different distribution mechanisms are put in place but this issue is not going away. In that regard, we look forward to playing a role on the working group the Minister has set up and we would welcome an opportunity for membership there while taking into account, however, the goal, which I mentioned in my replies to Deputy Donnelly, that this is an issue we should be seeking to address in a more permanent way. From our perspective, we can play a role in that but the Deputy has identified income improvement or income augmentation as being the key here and that is something we do not have any particular role or control over.

On the CE issue and the issue of age, of the 800 or 900 plus CE schemes around the country, just 34 of those are within local development companies so we do not have the broad breadth of experience on this. Of course, the issue of unclear delineation between schemes, the older age cohort, the issue Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned of those who will not get a place in the open job market, they all need to be seen in the round but a basic principle is that people can do and provide valuable community services, as well as services to their own health, well-being and personal development outside of the open labour market. We think these schemes should continue to facilitate that community benefit and that personal development, not least from a cost-effectiveness viewpoint, given the savings in health costs that arise from people's full participation in their communities.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

I will just come in to follow up the issue of food poverty, and I thank Deputy Kerrane for the question. During the pandemic we saw people accessing services related to food poverty who had not previously done so because of the raising of awareness around the services available in the local community. Generally, the people who are accessing food supports and experiencing food poverty had many other issues; there was a lot going on in their homes, and a lot more going on in the community. We see a real connection between food poverty, energy poverty and digital poverty. It was people accessing general supports. When all else fails and a person has spent the limited income he or she has on energy, what is left is food. We have established a network of support through the communities and linking with those who had not engaged previously and were further on the margins. Thus there is a support system established there through the food bank system and that is an infrastructure from which other supports can be disseminated. The Deputy is absolutely right that nobody would want to be doing that and we did not think we would be addressing food poverty at this scale across the country and in every community one can imagine. It has highlighted much greater levels of deprivation in addition to the food poverty people presented with initially.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses.

Mark Wall (Labour)
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I thank both witnesses for their presentations, and all those who work in LEADER programmes throughout the country. I have been involved in a number of them in my own County Kildare over a long period and have realised the great work they do on the ground.

I want to pick up on one aspect mentioned by the Chairman in his introduction of the representatives, namely, tackling isolation. Maybe we could get some comments on what is happening there. I am aware of a great group in County Kildare called Older Voices, which does great work in tackling isolation throughout all the socioeconomic groups and obviously that is the type of model I would like to see rolled out. I am sure it is in other areas but not all. That group has done some tremendous work over the period the pandemic has been with us. Rural isolation, and indeed urban isolation, is there and we must tackle it. The witnesses should comment on their thoughts on how we can tackle it in an ongoing way and whether additional funding is needed to do so

On food poverty, I brought this up the last day when the Society of St. Vincent de Paul appeared before us, but I am finding there are new groups starting up in a lot of towns and villages. In some cases there are three or four groups competing with one another in some of these towns. I realise the Minister has organised a working group and Mr. Saunders has spoken about that but obviously there is need for a national programme to co-ordinate this. Taking in and totally supporting what Deputy Paul Donnelly has said, there are other issues at play here and we must tackle those first but at the moment there are so many groups around the country that we must co-ordinate them and I would welcome a comment on that.

Obviously, I support the work the local employment services have done and it is important to say they do great work, to acknowledge it and to support the witnesses' calls and those of all members in this meeting. On the LEADER programme, Mr. Saunders mentioned animation and the animators we have and I am familiar with those. It is very hard to get the funding. Deputy Ó Cuív has rightly said spend and somebody will send but sometimes it is very hard to get there. Mr. Saunders commented that he was hoping those rules would change. Maybe he could give a little detail on what he is hoping for because we would all echo those calls. Anybody who has been involved in supporting community and particularly voluntary groups in filling in those forms would definitely support his calls that there be some changes in that regard.

I will mention some parochial stuff related to County Kildare once again and perhaps this is reflected throughout the country. There is a perception when it comes to allocating funding, particularly in County Kildare, that it is a rich county - a K4 that has been there for a long time - I have mentioned before. The witnesses might comment on how, within every county, there are pockets that need help. As I said, LEADER and SICAP do great work in County Kildare but they need support and additional funding. The Department must recognise that there are such pockets in every county, even if there is a perception that these counties are rich in some senses.

I have two final questions. The training budget for the CE scheme is being raised with me a lot at the moment. CE schemes are struggling at present and Mr. Saunders mentioned it in his opening statement. He might comment on the benefits of that training scheme and what it does for CE schemes. Finally, on SICAP, it has been mentioned that there has been a 50% reduction since 2008. Obviously there is a lot of work that can be done in that regard. What headline items can the representatives envisage and what could be done, were we to go back towards those 2008 figures?

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

As for the issue of isolation, we saw it enter the mainstream and there was discussion on people experiencing isolation in both rural and urban contexts. One measure local development companies are looking at in particular concerns the fact that people who are not naturally connected within their community and who are experiencing isolation tend often to attend their GP. In our local area of Mulhuddart, the GP tells us that there are people accessing her services who she has referred to our social prescribing programme. This programme, which we have established, is evidence-based and shows that for people who are experiencing isolation, anxiety and low-grade depression, attendance at their GP actually reduces as they are connected with their local community.

The social prescribing programme meets with an individual who is referred by the GP, by other services, or as a self-refer. It takes a person through a typical day and what that could be like, living in his or her own community and connected to all the community resources around him or her. We find that is a very positive way of identifying what each individual needs in terms of isolation. Sometimes, if there are many people in an area there is a sense of “We need to form a group”, but sometimes isolation is very person-centred. Sometimes that person needs a bit of support along with the social prescriber, so his or her capacity to engage in a group or to connect with their local community around them is developed. I am aware social prescribing is one measure already being run by the ILDN and many of our member organisations and companies throughout the country. For that to be developed and expanded further would be very important. I will hand over to Mr. Saunders to discuss the LEADER programme.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

On the LEADER programme, we have seen incremental bureaucracy, by stealth or otherwise, over successive programmes. This has been a barrier to rapid roll out. It has caused problems not just for the local development companies but also, as mentioned, for the applicants. More and more we find we are assisting applicants to fill in their application forms and to get through the hoops they must jump through.

One positive on this is the notion of simplified cost options, SCO, which is a concept in place in other European countries. In planning for the next programme, we are engaged with the Department of Rural and Community Development, going through some scenario planning on models of SCO that should decrease bureaucracy for the next programme. We have put detailed proposals before the Department, and we have engaged in analysis on this, including the obstacles around some of the procurement processes and some of the administration hurdles. They do need to be simplified. At a general level we tend to subsume or take in EU regulations, maybe excessively or far too enthusiastically. Certainly, across the EU, the LEADER programme is reporting increased bureaucracy, but not in all areas or to the same extent we have experienced.

We have been working with the Department. The last programme initiated some basic reforms in that. We are hoping for a better system the next time also. Obviously, however, that is not all in our hands.

I accept 100% the point about pockets of disadvantage. Poverty is everywhere and sometimes it is hidden. We must remember that it morphs and changes also. In the previous iterations it may have been called something different, and in the early days of the social inclusion programmes one of the big indicators of poverty was the presence of local authority housing in an area. Today we know it is the housing assistance payment, which is prevalent everywhere. Consider two housing estates, one next to the other. One may be local authority housing and the other estate is HAP tenants. To all intents and purposes, the socioeconomic profile and the income levels of the people are the exact same. Those two estates in the two areas need to be treated the same in any kind of research or data presentation that will guide the programme. The programme's own research, upon which it relies, needs to keep up to date with the changing levels of poverty, and to identify poverty at local level. Our own companies and the staff in them are good at this. They are adept and experienced at knowing and recognising these areas and making the appropriate connections, but we need the programme design to take it into account also. I accept that point.

On community employment training, we would like to see the reinstatement of the training budget to the previous levels. There is also an issue with participants between the ages of 21 and 25, who must be working towards a Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, qualification. In some cases, their needs are for more basic, person-centred and unaccredited training. This, however, is not counted in the system. We have made the case for this reform in pre-budget submissions for successive years, and we will continue to do so.

Mark Wall (Labour)
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I thank the witnesses.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I join other speakers on the comments about food banks. It is extraordinary and shocking that we see people having to take up food from food banks, although it is great they are there. In fairness to the Chairman, I have heard him speak on numerous occasions on the wastage of food every day in Ireland. The amount of food that is wasted is shocking.

I apologise if my question was already answered in response to Senator Wall’s very important point. I am involved in a social service whereby five of us run a service, which is a really good system of getting meals out, mainly in a wide rural area, to vulnerable people. The Chairman and Deputy Kerrane would also know about this. We do about 600 meals a month. There was an approach from a person with a food bank and who was involved in another area of food. I would not say that person was encroaching, but my point is that ours is a fantastic service and we get huge support from the HSE, which helps to make a subsidised meal. I do not think there is any point in anyone with a food bank, no matter how well-intentioned he or she is, encroaching on an area that is being well looked after. I accept there may be one or two people in the system who fall through the net, but generally in our area and most areas, there are a lot of those HSE-funded programmes. Has the development network had any contact with the HSE? Is there any sort of coming together on that so we would have one, co-ordinated system and not have someone, no matter how well-intentioned he or she is, coming in on it?

I lend my support to Deputy Ó Cuív. Again, in the context of the rural area, when a family are gone away for whatever reasons, an older person may be on his or her own. It may be a mother or father, an uncle or an aunt. This is when it would be important to have somebody at the end of a phone when the person calls services. My colleagues, especially those from the rural areas, will know that sometimes the answering machines not only frustrate older people, the machine actually upsets them. It upsets people when they cannot have a direct contact. As a society we all accept modernisation and how things move on, and we can all get frustrated with these machines, having to listen for ages waiting for a contact. Imagine being an older person in that situation. I know one person in recent months who needed an essential service. We got it straightened out in the end, but she was two months suffering until she contacted me about it. I am sure other colleagues have had the same thing. It really is important we fight for that and that there is somebody at the end of a phone to answer people when it comes to many of these services, and I am referring to State services. The Department of Social Protection is quite good at that but in some areas of essential services some people are falling through and not getting the contact.

I agree that the local employment services are vital and have done a huge job. I would not like to see too much interference with them because they have an important role to play.

On CE schemes, the point has been made to me that people who have been on that scheme in the past year have done very little work due to the Covid-19 pandemic. What is the possibility of that scheme being extended for one year for those people? There will be an issue there for those workers. Perhaps the witnesses would comment on that.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Would Mr. Saunders like to kick off there?

Mr. Joe Saunders:

I will respond in reverse order. On the CE schemes issue, we found that it affects the CE scheme and Tús schemes. As some schemes were frozen, people’s time on them was extended, but it is not extended after the post-pandemic period. Those people have not had the benefit of the experience the State offered to give to them through either a CE or a Tús scheme. We would advocate, and have advocated, that those people’s time on schemes should be extended.

That has not been acceded to yet but I agree 100% with what the Senator is saying. Our position is that for those who are being accorded one year or three years on whatever scheme it is, if they have been denied that through no fault of their own, their time should be extended.

The Senator is correct that I did not address Senator Wall's comments about the duplication issue head-on. The potential for duplication needs to be avoided at all costs. As regards food poverty, food banks, meals on wheels and the introduction of new services, that needs to be co-ordinated when linking in with the HSE. Our 49 local companies are well tapped into the current level of provision. The entire orientation should be towards collaboration, supporting what exists and plugging gaps rather than moving in on activity that community groups are already covering adequately.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

I thank Senators Murphy and Wall. Senator Wall asked about an increase in the SICAP budget. Nationally, SICAP supports 30,000 people annually and approximately 3,500 groups on average over the life of the programme. All of the reports show that it is having a huge impact on the individuals themselves, as well as the communities we serve. It is about doing more because there is obviously huge demand. We are seeing demand for services post pandemic and coming out of lockdown. The digital inclusion fund must be addressed and the SICAP infrastructure through the local development network is perfectly placed to address that. Specific supports are also needed for people exiting the direct provision system, who will be integrating into communities around Ireland. The local development network has tentacles in every community across Ireland so our infrastructure is well placed to do that. I spoke previously about isolation but the opposite of that is people engaging in their communities and connecting with the communities around them. We are looking at programmes like social prescribing, which speak to the heart of how people are connected with the people around them and the communities in which they live. Those are the key areas we are looking at but demand for our services is growing and increasing, and that will be particularly true in the next few months. We can see the evidence of that becoming very clear.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I have a few brief questions. If others member wishes to come in with a supplementary question, I ask them to raise their hands. I want to touch on two points in the presentation. The first relates to this digital inclusion fund. Ms O'Brien has frequently come back to this point during her contribution. It is imperative that such a fund is established. This issue has been brought to the fore during the Covid-19 crisis. Notwithstanding the comments of Senator Murphy and Deputy Ó Cuív, there is an opportunity here with the development of technology. Particularly with devices such as Alexa and so on, many older people are finding it far easier to engage with technology today than they were even 12 months ago. Twelve months from now, when there is a substantial amount of fibre broadband across rural Ireland, that will change again. This is an opportunity to develop new, innovative technologies that meet the needs of isolated communities. As I said in my opening contribution, it is not just about people who are physically isolated in rural areas. There are people isolated in Deputy Donnelly's constituency and many other urban constituencies. They may be in a home with other houses around them but they are socially isolated and we need to reach out to them. They cannot be ignored. Bizarrely, funding for the digital training in which I invested substantially in my old Department was shut down during Covid-19, when it should have been ramped up. The ILDN should go down the avenue of this digital inclusion model.

Mr. Saunders mentioned community employment training, which is a fundamental aspect of the community employment scheme. We should be providing all possible available opportunities for training regardless of what type of training that is. He picked up on the issue whereby people in the 21-25 age group have to do QQI training but young people who have fallen through the cracks and who have very poor literacy or numeracy skills are not going to be able to secure a QQI qualification. In fact, it is a waste of public funding to put them through that process if they do not have the very basic skills to engage with society. That is where the focus should start and I do not mean today or yesterday. Agricultural colleges across the country have run literacy and numeracy courses for students in tandem with the green certificate courses. This must be the fundamental building block to assist young people in getting out of that poverty trap.

I will let Deputy Donnelly in and then the witnesses can respond to both our questions.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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One of the projects I was involved in locally always had a difficult relationship with a State agency. When the pandemic came along, that changed fundamentally and a lot of the barriers and relationships that had been built up previously came down straight away. Everybody recognised that the pandemic was something new and people did not know what was coming down the line so there was an air of wanting to help each other. Is that approach still the same? I fear that those barriers may be beginning to go back up among some of the organisations. I just want to get a sense from the witnesses because they have a wide reach into the community right across Fingal, as well as with different State agencies. I would appreciate if the witnesses could give me a sense of that.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Ms O'Brien seems to be champing at the bit so I will let her in first.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

As regards the collaboration, that infrastructure was set up across the county on the Community Call and it is obvious that that collaborative work has remained in place. Work was done on the food poverty issue with the dissemination of information through the local community development committees, LCDCs, as well as collaborative pieces with those partners addressing health inequality. There were issues in accessing health services and the digital inclusion initiatives we ran supported people through that. There is much closer collaboration between local development companies, HSE representatives and Department representatives on the LCDCs and the Community Call. It is continuing. The issue is not as urgent but longer pieces of collaborative work have definitely emerged from that.

There are two issues with embracing new technologies. The first is inclusion, which relates to everybody. Sometimes there is capacity to engage where connectivity, hardware and software are not an issue but very often in those cases with older people they also need the capacity to engage safely. Work is needed around safety and engaging online but as well as the inclusion aspect there is also the issue of poverty, where the barrier to engaging online is the means to do it. Poverty is a major issue when it comes to inclusion. Following some of the work we have done where we included people by digital means, they are now engaging in education and training.

They are also engaging in parenting courses and inclusion activities online where previously transport was an issue and access was an issue for some people with disabilities. Childcare was another typical barrier to engaging in group-based activities. We have seen that a lot of people who would never have been able to access our services for a variety of reasons are now completely engaged. It is correct to say that it is about embracing technology but all four components have to be accessible for everybody to be completely included. Where hardware, software and connectivity are in place, knowledge and competency in engaging safely online are critical for everybody.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

I will make a comment on Deputy Donnelly's question. We have seen increased collaborations, which is one of the things that would be welcome from our perspective. We develop collaborations both with new Departments and new sections in Departments. We also work with other NGOs with which we did not necessarily have ongoing operational collaboration.

On a more philosophical level, this openness probably existed because everybody realised that this pandemic was new and that nobody had the rule book. Therefore, none of us could presume that our own wisdom was necessarily the correct perceived wisdom. The Deputy is probably alluding to the fact that some of that fundamental honesty may be slipping away but I hope not. We have not seen evidence of that but we have the antennae well out for it. The fact is that we were all in this boat together. Nobody really knew who was steering the ship or in which direction it needed to go. It was a leveller in that respect and we all had to be a little bit humble about our own little piece of expertise.

I note and concur with the observations made by the Chair on community employment training.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I want to clarify a point. I agree that there is isolation and loneliness in urban areas. I know that I probably homed in on rural areas but I fully accept that in constituencies such as the one Deputy Donnelly represents and in other big urban areas, it is also necessary to look out for people. The point about technology was a fair one but there will still be a cohort of people who will not become technology friendly, particularly older people, so we need to look at how we can help them. I admit that they have become handy with text messages, WhatsApp and some of them are using computers, as I see in my own home. It is just a small cohort of people who might be left stranded, such as in the case I mentioned, particularly if they do not have family around them. That can be a problem. Technology has a huge benefit for people but we must get everybody working on and understanding that technology and in many cases we need to ensure that people are not afraid of it.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I will ask the witnesses if they want to make a final comment. Picking up on Senator Murphy's contribution, he is right that we need to address a particular cohort of people for whom, for different reasons, technology is not suitable. We also need to be honest and open-minded. Older people are far more open to change and using technology than any of us could have contemplated in the past. I recall seeing a local Senator recently calling out the numbers in an online bingo event where there were a considerable number of older people. It was great to see the grandparents of grandchildren marking the bingo cards over the Internet, which I never thought I would see. Technology can bring families together as well. It is about trying to provide the innovative solutions that can meet the needs of all aspects of our society. That is what all members of this committee are determined to do, regardless of where we come from and what our perspective is.

I ask Ms O'Brien initially and then Mr. Saunders to make a brief closing comment.

Ms Adeline O'Brien:

In summary, there have been a lot of asks today but what we are substantially looking at is valuing the infrastructure of local development that is in place. As has been outlined, there is an infrastructure in place, the tentacles of which reach into every single small area of the country. There is an infrastructure that is able to deliver at scale and there is a possibility to dial up and dial down. We have seen the breadth and range of local services we are providing in each and every community. We are well positioned to take on national issues that are affecting large numbers of people across the country, looking at national policy, deciphering that and addressing how it can be best delivered in each local community and area, based on the individual needs that are identified in local areas.

We spoke about agility in terms of the pandemic. The fact is that we are all governed by voluntary boards; we are a not-for-profit local and community-based organisation that has the potential for a national response to all issues affecting people in their community. It is about ensuring the sustainability of the sector and the infrastructure of the local development network.

Mr. Joe Saunders:

I have two final comments. On Senator Murphy's observations, I agree that this is a people's business and our starting point is wherever people's starting point is as we try to bring them on a journey while also recognising their capacity. The digital era has challenges and opportunities and we need to see those in a balanced way.

I thank the Chair and members of the committee. The members who are on the call and those who are not have each individually taken an active interest in our work at local and national level over the past few months and that is reflected in the invitation we received to be here this morning. We appreciate that. We also appreciate the opportunity for dialogue and to elaborate on and answer some of the members' questions. We wish the committee well in drawing up its pre-budget submission. If there is any further assistance we can give at a committee or individual level, please contact us and we will do so without hesitancy.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Saunders and Ms O'Brien for their contributions this morning. Senator Murphy summed it up well when he said it was a really interesting engagement. It was also very useful for members as we formulate our proposals for budget 2022. I thank the witnesses on behalf of the local development companies across the country. Their input will be of enormous benefit to the committee in the preparation of our submissions to the Ministers for Social Protection, Rural and Community Development, Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform.