Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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218. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the reason for the discrepancy in the advocacy services here, whereby there are currently only three persons employed by the service here while there are 26 employed in similar services in Northern Ireland, which has a significantly smaller deaf population. [28492/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides funding to the Irish Deaf Society under the Scheme to Support National Organisations in the Community and Voluntary sector, which aims to provide multi-annual funding to national organisations towards core costs associated with the provision of services.

A new round of funding under the Scheme commenced on 1 July this year, for a period of three years. In total, 148 applications were received and assessed by Pobal, which administers the Scheme for my Department. I approved 70 organisations for funding, with a total envelope of €16.4 million over three years. This level of funding was well in excess of the indicated amount initially advertised and was an effort to fund as many organisations as possible under the Scheme.

The maximum amount of funding available under the Scheme is €90,000 per annum per organisation. Irish Deaf Society was allocated €269,700 over the three year period of the scheme. According to the application assessed by Pobal, this will fund direct salary costs associated with three core staff members, namely the advocacy manager, a development worker and an administrator, as well as indirect costs associated with rent and utilities.