Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I take the Deputy's point about costs. We have different levels of funding for different types of organisations. The level the Deputy is talking about tends in many cases to get support via LCDCs and the community support fund we are in the process of rolling out across local authorities at the moment. We announced last year that €10 million would be available to grassroots groups, of which there are hundreds in every local authority area. That fund is particularly effective at reaching some of those costs but perhaps not all of them. I would also point to national organisations we fund with core funding whose job it is to support smaller organisations to develop. I am thinking of Boardmatch, The Wheel and the Carmichael Centre. To some extent, I am also thinking of the Irish Men's Sheds Association, which helps to support smaller organisations to grow and develop. We are certainly conscious of the cost of compliance and administration that many organisations, particularly small organisations, are facing and it is one of the reasons we are, through the Charities Bill, making it easier for those smaller organisations to submit reporting to the regulator.

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