Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom moladh a thabhairt do Shinn Féin as ucht an rún seo a ardú. Is fiú go mór na heagraíochtaí deonacha agus an earnáil dheonach a phlé.

From the time I left university until I got into politics I worked totally for voluntary organisations in the form of Conradh na Gaeilge, Comhdháil Náisiúnta na nGaeilge and subsequently for a Gaeltacht co-op which effectively was a community co-op that created employment and activity and social services in a very remote Gaeltacht area.

Voluntary organisations come in many shapes and sizes. All the sporting organisations do enormous good throughout society for people of all ages. There are also local organisations, community councils and specialist organisations, particularly in the health and social sector. There are also national organisations and locally based organisations even in the specialities. Some of those organisations are professionally driven and a huge part of this sector is voluntary in its nature. To say that one size fits all would be very wrong because it is a hugely diverse sector. It is important that at all times we recognise that diversity and try to make the supports we give to the sector fit the sector as it needs to be on the ground.

I pay tribute to all in society who give of their time to voluntary work. I should say that as one who has always been involved in voluntary work there is a fantastic reward for participation in such work and being part of various organisations who work with the community. I encourage anybody in society who wants to have a more fulfilled life that there is no better way than to get involved in community organisations and the rewards in terms of friendships and satisfaction are huge. An enormous amount of time is put in by people into voluntary organisations. Without that great volunteerism our society would not work as it does. There is another way of doing it, that is to tax everyone at a higher rate and make all the voluntary work professional. Voluntary work cannot all be made professional while leaving the tax rates at the present levels because one cannot spend money unless it is taken in. One of the fundamental lessons we all need to learn is that in the longer term borrowing is only a short-term panacea, that the money spent by the State has to be taken in by the State and the only ultimate source of money is the people of the State. Therefore, anybody who calls for more services must tell us from where the money will come. I agree with the motion from Sinn Féin regarding continuous funding. One of the problems with the funding streams is that it comes in three year periods, where it takes one year to get into business, one year operating as normal and the final year one was uncertain whether one would get into the next round. We need longer funding cycles and that the funding of certain basic organisations was fundamental. In certain cases, there were organisations for every purpose rather than a sharing of facilities creating synergies in the provision of services.

The Government is looking for reform of the system, but the funded voluntary sector must recognise that they are required to reform themselves. This requires ongoing dialogue. I am not particularly happy and I never have been with the transfer of responsibilities to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. This is what they do on the Continent, and the idea is that we should do the same and that money should transfer from the Department to the 32 local authorities who in turn allocate it to about 100 groups in their administrative area. That seems to be crazy thinking. My experience is that the Minister will spend the time chasing the 32 local authorities should one of the organisations it funds gets into trouble. The Department will not be able to get at the trouble because an intermediate body will be in the way. It is ironic that at time when we are transferring responsibilities to local authorities, we are amalgamating vocational educational committees, because there are too many of them. In my view, things worked better when operated directly through a Department. We are a small society comprising 4 million people, who like to go to their TD even about local authority matters. Did that ever happen to the Minister of State, Deputy Penrose? Of course it did, because in Ireland people like to go to the top man because he will fix it.

There was a move in the system to transfer responsibility to local authorities, but as this will add greatly to the bureaucracy, I ask the Minister to think again. In my view if responsibility for the voluntary sector and the partnerships is shifted to the local authorities we will wind up with a much higher bill. It will be driven by professionalism. The beauty of our voluntary sector is that there is a significant voluntary input but if it was under the local authority management people would ask why should they be out shaking the boxes when it up to the local authority to do it.

There is major potential with the community employment scheme, the rural social scheme and the community services programme. As the then Minister for Social Protection, I was in the middle of a major reform of these schemes when the Government collapsed. I was in the Department for a total of ten months. I had set up the rural social scheme, which allowed farmers to do their farm work once they worked on a scheme for 18 hours, for which they were paid. This was much better for the farmer and it was of great benefit to society. The work carried out under community employment schemes made a significant impact in the community. One theory was to train all the people to participate in competitive employment, but one snag is that there is insufficient competitive employment. If we are honest - I speak as a person who was an employer in a co-operative which had a competitive side, timber mill trading and so on and a community element, where people were on community employment schemes - some people on community employment schemes would never be able for one reason or another to hold down a competitive job. All they ask is to be left on a scheme, and we allowed them to do so, if they were a small farmer, subject to periodic means test. They get €20 more than the basic social welfare payment. I expanded the community services programme, which I believe could create much more than 5,000 jobs. There are a great many buildings that are not fully used, which could generate some income but would never be viable in a commercial sense. The purpose of the community services programme is to help people who are unemployed to earn the minimum wage plus by working in these centres. We had come to a point where we had to make a big jump. Every Department sees itself as separate and operates on that basis. My philosophy was that if you cannot beat them, join them, in other words, the rural social scheme and the community services programme in the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and the community employment schemes in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Would the Department of Social Protection transfer some of its resources required for the dole to other Departments so that people who were being forced to be inactive could be active for €20 a week? We decided that we would not be able to get the Department to hand over the money, but we could if we put them all into one Department, which the then Government did last year, in nine months; the process was completed on 1 January 2011. I transferred the schemes to the Department of Social Protection and had it operational. Now the big game is in the hands of the current Minister. There is a sum of €6 billion between social welfare, unemployment and scheme payments. It would be great to transfer €1 billion from the unemployment tranche and put it into the scheme payment and progressively transfer people as jobs are created in the community sector. There is a difference in the cost, and I will now explain how to cover the cost. The Minister, Deputy Burton knows this but she has to take her courage in hand and do the big thing. We have it all teed up and ready for her to do it. People who are genuinely unemployed will be more than happy to take a place on a scheme, but those who might have a fairly good sideline going, will sign off. One would only need an attrition rate of between one in ten and one in 20. One does not require significant numbers to sign off to make my proposal self-financing. If one thinks of all of the services society needs, everything one could do in a parish, I know that in my parish we have a significant number on schemes but we could do with twice as many and have useful project for all who could take them up and none will be leaning on a shovel because there is so much good work to be done, whether opening up walkways, providing meals on wheels, care for the elderly, services for young people, after-school services, literally anything as far as one can imagine. If we were to do that, at very little cost we would bump up the voluntary and social services in our society and we would give those who are unemployed because they do not have a job at present but who will move on and those who will never get competitive employment an opportunity to make their contribution and enjoy the dignity of work. When the Minister of State, Deputy Penrose meets the people on the schemes, he will know I am telling the truth when I say they really value the place on the schemes and that it makes a significant difference.

I cannot agree with the Sinn Féin position on dormant accounts. They obviously have not studied the dormant account. The amount of money coming in is too small in the first place. Second it does not suit and was never meant to replace the mainframe funding. It was for extra projects, in social and economic disadvantage, educational disadvantage and disability. I suggested when in government that we rerun a scheme for capital projects, that was really effective and it ties in with what the Minister said about philanthropy, that ranged from providing respite care for people with mental or physical disabilities to aquatherapy and anything else which fell within the guidelines. We ensured half the money was provided by community collections or philanthropy. In many cases money was collected through box shaking and in a few cases by philanthropy. All the money could not come from the State. Some 50% of the money was provided from dormant accounts. With €30 million in dormant accounts one could provide €60 million in facilities. If the money dried up, it did not matter because it was already in the fund.

For about ten years, even though there were payments every year the money coming in always exceeded that being paid out. There is a reserve of 5% of total funding held against people who may claim money lodged 15 to 100 years ago. I suggested the Government amend the legislation to ensure those who wished to reclaim money had the first call on the reserve and the second call on any money taken in. In the 10 million to one likelihood the reserve was used up as inflows came in money would be repaid. The money spent would be written off and there would be no right to reclaim it. It is perfectly safe idea.

It is also fair to say that if people have not reclaimed money lodged 40 years ago or more in an account which became dormant the money is dead. There are many ways one could write off such money. The €400 million which is considered to be a liability on the State is extremely unlikely to be claimed and it would be important to get such money written off the books.

The previous Government was very keen to get the Irish civic forum going. The problem is not here. Sinn Féin is in the wrong Oireachtas. It should be in the Northern Ireland Executive. If it knows anybody who sits on it, it might have a word with him or her.

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