Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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51. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her Department has investigated the development of social enterprise projects to create employment opportunities for persons from vulnerable groups (details supplied). [39550/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Community Services Programme (CSP) provides financial support to community companies that provide revenue generating services of a socially inclusive nature. Many of these companies are also funded from other sources and generate revenue from the public use of their facilities and services. In May 2017, my Department announced a call for proposals under strand 3 of CSP, which focuses on social enterprises that employ people who are most distant from the labour market. This includes stabilised and recovering drug misusers and people with convictions who are in contact with probationary services. This call was in response to the additional €1m in funding provided for the programme in budget 2017. Applicants to this call are currently engaged in business planning with Pobal, who operate the scheme on behalf of my Department. It is envisaged that a number of new strand 3 projects will begin to receive CSP funding in 2018 as a result of this year’s call for proposals.

In addition to this, the Department of Justice and Equality recently published ‘A New Way Forward’ social enterprise strategy 2017-2019. One of the primary objectives of this is to explore the introduction of a specific funding stream for social enterprises that operate alongside the criminal justice sector.

Research and proposals relating to social enterprise and their impact on employment creation among vulnerable groups will also be considered as part of the social enterprise research steering group, which has been established by my colleague, the Minister for Community and Rural Affairs, Minister Michael Ring.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.