Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for the work done to date on this valuable proposal. It is important to develop this concept. Companies look for specific projects to sponsor rather than giving a set amount to a number of voluntary organisations. There is an interesting connection between expenditure and what it is used for. A member of my family works in Kenya where in a local school there is one teacher for every 70 pupils. It is being suggested companies should sponsor a teacher, which would cost €1,200 a year. This would mean a direct link with specific expenditure, as opposed to the company providing €1,200 for the school generally. This approach to projects needs to be developed in the State.

I am involved in a project where 30 children who have dropped out of school are provided with one-to-one teaching by 18 teachers on a voluntary basis. These 18 people are giving more than 1% and as a result of their voluntary contribution last year, six of the young people sat the leaving certificate applied, while another six sat the junior certificate examinations. It is expected that 14 young people who had dropped out of the education system will sit examinations during the coming year. This is the result of the voluntary contribution made.

I refer to third level colleges. I graduated from UCC.

It is interesting how in the past ten to 15 years UCC has brought in €87 million in voluntary contributions for projects it specifically targeted to sell to people. One donation alone was for more than €5 million. UCC has adopted a proactive approach to getting in money for projects. Without getting such funding, the college would not have been able to proceed with projects.

One of the interesting things that has been evident in the United States for some time is that when people leave a third level institution, one member in each class has the role of keeping track of 14 or 15 students within the class and he or she must feed back the information on their location in the United States or another part of the world. Each graduate pays $100 a year for the first ten years after leaving college. For the next ten years they pay $500 a year and for the following ten years they pay $1,000 a year. If we applied these figures to the Minister, this year he would pay €1,000 to UCC as a graduate of the institution.