Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join with colleagues in congratulating the Irish team and all the people involved in its performance in the championship. They did the country proud, as did the supporters in the way they behaved, in that they put forward a very positive message for Ireland.

An issue that is coming up more and more in rural areas is that community groups and sporting organisations require people to work for them but the people available do not qualify for the various community employment schemes. As a result, the organisations are not able to employ people. It is time for the Minister for Social Protection to examine the entire area and consider revising the schemes and amending the rules in order to facilitate organisations, especially sporting and community organisations. I refer in particular to people over 62 years of age. It appears there is a big problem at the moment because people in that age group do not currently qualify for many schemes. The issue was raised recently in the north Cork area by a number of councillors and it is an issue we must examine in order that those who provide services and facilities for young people are given the necessary State support.

Senator Boyhan raised the issue of funding to various voluntary organisations. The HSE budget is approximately €13.8 billion and out of that, €3.6 billion goes to approximately 2,600 organisations. We never get a breakdown of what each organisation gets until we table questions on it.That is what I did in the last health committee. As a result, a number of issues came to light on how that funding was spent. Over €3.6 billion of the health budget goes to those organisations. That is quite a number of organisations to audit and supervise. We need to make sure that we have proper mechanisms so that every euro we give is properly managed and used. We should not be leaving it to the national broadcaster to highlight inefficiencies in those organisations. The Minister should look at how we could put in place a proper audit system to ensure taxpayers' money is used properly.