Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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72. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if an assessment has been carried out on her Department's response to Covid in terms of the exclusion of some marginalised groups. [53734/22]

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Have any assessments been carried out on the Minister's Department's response to Covid in terms of exclusion of some marginalised groups?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department introduced specific supports, interventions and funding packages in response to Covid-19, having assessed the emerging needs of urban and rural communities impacted by Covid-19. My Department was also instrumental in setting up the local authority community response forum, or community call forums, which had a particular focus on vulnerable people in our communities. A review of the effectiveness of these forums carried out by the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, concluded that the work and processes developed through community call have been effective in delivering support to vulnerable groups during the pandemic.

Other supports provided by my Department at that time included the Covid-19 stability fund, which supported 863 organisations in 2020 and 2021 with total funding of approximately €48.8 million. In 2020, €4.2 million was provided under the Covid-19 emergency fund, which targeted help at groups participating in the Government's community call initiative. The community enhancement programme provides vital supports to assist local groups to reopen their facilities post Covid-19. The programme provided €4.5 million funding in 2021 for small capital grants for the improvement of facilities. In November 2021, I launched the community activities fund. This €9 million fund was provided to support community and voluntary groups impacted by Covid-19 to help them with their bills and maintenance.

A number of the rural schemes delivered by my Department were also adapted to assist communities respond to the pandemic, including through accelerated funding under the town and village renewal scheme for measures such as outdoor meeting spaces and public dining areas. In 2020, the CLÁR programme placed a particular focus on supporting communities to deal with the impact of Covid-19. The scheme was broadened to allow projects that helped adapt community facility environs. The community services programme, CSP, which is also funded by my Department, supports more than 420 community organisations nationwide. In response to the Covid-19 crisis, my Department developed a €8.95 million CSP support fund to cover the period 2020 to 2021.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I commend the community call initiative, which I was involved with in Dublin West, where we delivered hundreds of meals and medication for people who were in dire need. What really struck me at the time was how isolated and vulnerable older people in particular were and those who had disabilities. I was at a recent launch of iCommunity with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Communities in the North, Ms Deirdre Hargey. I was struck by the Disability Action Network saying that 35% of social care had been impacted, more than half the people surveyed experienced disruption to accessing food and medication, and there was a notable decline in physical and mental well-being. We are still seeing the effects of that today. One of the issues is around the management of such effects. What did we do during Covid and what do we need to do post Covid to ensure that, if circumstances such as those arise again, we are in a better place to deal with them? There are many learnings.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is right that there are many learnings from Covid. I met a group of women last week - I do not know whether you would call them women's sheds, hen's sheds, sisters' sheds or whatever - to see how we can develop a national organisation similar to the men's sheds, because women do not have such an organisation in place. One lady from Dublin said she lost her mother during Covid and she did not leave the house during that time. She just did not have the ability or the confidence to go outside. Somebody set up the sisters' sheds and invited her to go along. She told me it changed her life. Those are the types of interventions that make a difference, where you can go to a group.

We have learned a lot. Community call, as the Deputy said, was very successful. We need to take learnings as to how we can engage with communities. Local authorities were able to engage much more with communities during Covid. We always find it hard to engage with people who are marginalised and do not know about the services that are in place. It is about how we get in to support them.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I could not agree more. As an example, people within the drug community are especially marginalised. These would be people who are active drug users who are getting supports from community drug teams. There had been a fractious relationship at times between Government agencies and some of the community projects. All of that was washed away during Covid, however, because everybody recognised we needed to work together to ensure what we did supported those who are particularly marginalised and disadvantaged.

My concern is that some of those learnings are being lost and that State agencies are in some ways reasserting their silo to a certain extent. That is why we need a detailed study or report into how we all worked together, what worked very well, what did not and what practices and policies we can put in place to ensure that if a pandemic ever happened again, which it possibly could, we are ready for it and the State agencies take those learnings of the very good work during Covid and move them into present-day work.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The National Economic and Social Council report was positive and suggested lessons can be learned from the community call. The Deputy is right. He mentioned addiction. Two weeks ago I was in Fettercairn, out beside Tallaght, where there is a group called Connect. I think it is funded by the partnership. Its members go out at night, identify people who are vulnerable, bring them in and try to help them. The group does great work. It is working collaboratively with the partnership out there.

Siloing and empire-building should be banned. They should not exist. There should be collaboration. There is loads of work for everybody and a role for everybody but sometimes you find people like to expand their little space and that is not the way it should work. It is about working together.